Protein isoform - Wikipedia
Photograph a historic site, help Wikipedia, and win a prize. Participate in the world's largest photography competition this month! Learn more A protein isoform, or "protein variant",[1] is a member of a set of highly similar proteins that originate from a single gene and are the result of genetic differences.[2] While many perform the same or similar biological roles, some isoforms have unique functions. A set of protein isoforms may be formed from alternative splicings, variable promoter usage, or other post-transcriptional modifications of a single gene; post-translational modifications are generally not considered. (For that, see Proteoforms.) Through RNA splicing mechanisms, mRNA has the ability to select different protein-coding segments (exons) of a gene, or even different parts of exons from RNA to form different mRNA sequences. Each unique sequence produces a specific form of a protein. The discovery of isoforms could explain the discrepancy between the small number of protein
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