In: Biology
What can differentiate non- processed from processed pseudogenes?
Introns? Number of copies? Presence of deleterious mutations? Poly A Tail?
Pseudogenes also known as genomic fossils are those genes which do resemble with functional genes but they do ot have coding-sequences. There are two types of pseudogenes i.e. Processed and unprocessed
a) Processed pseudogenes: These are considered as copies of mRNAs which are processed by reverse transcription process. A total of 20,000 genes have been classified as processed pseudogenes
b) Unprocessed pseudogenes: These are those genes which are produced by duplication of genomic DNA and have undergone one or more than one mutations. They are non-expressive in nature, contain introns/stop codons and does not contain polyA tail and untrascribed promoter part. A total of 1,918 human gens have been classified as unprocessed pseudogenes.
Thus, non-processed pseudogenes differ from processsed ones in terms of : Introns, Presence of deleterious mutations, lack of Poly A Tail & Number of copies