inTRON legacy...is splicing evidence of cell evolution?

We have discussed the fact that unlike prokaryotic RNA, eukaryotic DNA must be spliced or processed before it achieves the status of mature mRNA.

The splicing event is peroformed by the spliceosome.  A recent study highlights the importance of spliceosome components by showing that a rare genetic disease is caused by a mutation in a

snRNPs the "smurfs" of cell biology

snRNP. The spliceosome is a machine made of several snRNPs. These molecular scissors cut precisely the right location on the primary transcript (hnRNA) to remove an intron and promote the ligation of exons. Prokaryotes appear to do just fine without introns.




inTrons freed from the cell?
what do they do now?

So what is the purpose of introns? What overall function do they provide for eukaryotes? Why use such a complex splicing operation for a function which appears to do nothing more than rejoin exon regions? How do evolutionary biologists propose that snRNPs and spliceosomes evolved? Is this good design or is this entire process wasteful because large pieces of genetic material is discarded? Is this wasteful process, therefore, not supportive of the idea that splicing is a designed feature of cell life?

due April 20