| Definition: |
Any of a series of ribonucleoprotein complexes that contain snRNA(s) and small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs), and are formed sequentially during the spliceosomal splicing of one or more substrate RNAs, and which also contain the RNA substrate(s) from the initial target RNAs of splicing, the splicing intermediate RNA(s), to the final RNA products. During cis-splicing, the initial target RNA is a single, contiguous RNA transcript, whether mRNA, snoRNA, etc., and the released products are a spliced RNA and an excised intron, generally as a lariat structure. During trans-splicing, there are two initial substrate RNAs, the spliced leader RNA and a pre-mRNA. |