Life Sciences Commons^™

Use Of Co-Immunoprecipitations And 2d Gel Electrophoresis To Identify Protein-Protein Interactions Of Maturase K, Lauren Angello

Honors Theses

Maturase K (MatK) is the only group II intron encoded protein in the chloroplast of land plants. Maturases are prokaryotic enzymes that catalyze formation of the lariat structure needed for intron removal from precursor RNAs. The chloroplast maturase MatK, is a descendant of prokaryotic maturases, however, unlike its prokaryotic relatives, MatK is thought to catalyze excision of, not only its own intron, but also the introns of other group II introns in the plastome. Similar to the multiprotein and snRNA spliceosomal complex of the nucleus, it is postulated that MatK is not working alone to excise these introns but most …