Difference Between Exons And Introns - Comparison Chart - Byju's

Exons are termed nucleic acid coding sequences, which are present in mRNA. Introns are the non-coding sequences present in the hnRNA, which are removed by RNA splicing before translation. The intron sequences frequently change with time, whereas the exon sequences are highly conserved.

Read on to explore the major differences between exons and introns.

Difference between Introns and Exons

Following are the important difference between introns and exons:

Introns	Exons
Found in Eukaryotes only	Found in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes
Non-coding areas of the DNA	Coding areas of the DNA
Introns are the non-coding part of hnRNA, which are removed before translation by RNA splicing to form mRNA	Exons are the nucleotide sequence in mRNA, which codes for proteins
The sequence of the introns frequently changes over time. In other words, they are less conserved	Exons are highly conserved
DNA bases found in between exons	DNA bases that are translated into proteins
Introns are removed in the nucleus before the mRNA moves to the cytoplasm	Mature mRNA contains exons and moves to the cytoplasm from the nucleus

Also Read: RNA Interference

What are Introns?

Introns are intervening sequences between two exons found in eukaryotes. They do not directly code for proteins. They are removed before the mRNA forms proteins. Therefore, these introns undergo the process of splicing. Introns are the non-coding parts of the nucleotides and are not highly conserved. It is essential to remove introns to prevent the formation of incorrect proteins.

What are Exons?

Exons are the coding sequences that code for the amino acid sequence of the protein. Exons are present in mature mRNA after post-transcriptional modification. These are highly conserved sequences, i.e., they do not frequently change with time.

From the listed difference, we can conclude that the main difference between exons and introns is their function in the genome.

Also Read:

Transcription of DNA to RNA

Genes

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