mRNA Splicing - Minor Pathway

mRNA Splicing - Minor Pathway The splicing of a subset of pre-mRNA introns occurs by a second pathway, designated the AT-AC or U12-dependent splicing pathway. AT-AC introns have highly conserved, non-canonical splice sites that are removed by the AT-AC spliceosome, which contains distinct snRNAs (U11, U12, U4atac, U6atac) that are structurally and functionally analogous to the major spliceosome. U5 snRNA as well as many of the protein factors appear to be conserved between the two spliceosomes.