Precursor mRNA

See main article Primary transcript for more details

Precursor mRNA (pre-mRNA) is an immature single strand of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA). Pre-mRNA is synthesized from a DNA template in the cell nucleus by transcription. Pre-mRNA comprises the bulk of heterogeneous nuclear RNA (hnRNA). The term hnRNA is often used as a synonym for pre-mRNA, although, in the strict sense, hnRNA may include nuclear RNA transcripts that do not end up as cytoplasmic mRNA.

Once pre-mRNA has been completely processed, it is termed "mature messenger RNA", "mature mRNA", or simply "mRNA".

Processing

Eukaryotic pre-mRNA exists only briefly before it is fully processed into mRNA. Pre-mRNAs include two different types of segments, exons and introns. Exons are segments that are retained in the final mRNA, whereas introns are removed in a process called splicing, which is performed by the spliceosome (except for self-splicing introns).

Additional processing steps attach modifications to the 5' and 3' ends of Eukaryotic pre-mRNA. These include a 5' cap of 7-methylguanosine and a poly-A tail. In addition, eukaryotic pre-mRNAs have their introns spliced out by spliceosomes made up of small nuclear ribonucleoproteins.