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Updated: Mar 6, 2026

A Reporter Assay to Analyze Intronic microRNA Maturation in Mammalian Cells
Published on: June 16, 2022
IRFinder: assessing the impact of intron retention on mammalian gene expression
Robert Middleton1, Dadi Gao1,2,3,4, Aubin Thomas5
1Bioinformatics Laboratory, Centenary Institute, Camperdown, 2050, Australia.
Abstract:
Intron retention (IR) occurs when an intron is transcribed into pre-mRNA and remains in the final mRNA. We have developed a program and database called IRFinder to accurately detect IR from mRNA sequencing data. Analysis of 2573 samples showed that IR occurs in all tissues analyzed, affects over 80% of all coding genes and is associated with cell differentiation and the cell cycle. Frequently retained introns are enriched for specific RNA binding protein sites and are often retained in clusters in the same gene. IR is associated with lower protein levels and intron-retaining transcripts that escape nonsense-mediated decay are not actively translated.
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