polyadenylation (redirected from Rna 3' polyadenylation signals)

polyadenylation

the addition of up to 250 adenylate residues to the 3' end of eukaryotic mRNAs to form a so-called poly(A) tail. The primary transcript is cleaved by a specific endonuclease that recognizes the sequence AAUAAA which is also referred to as a polyadenylation signal sequence. The poly(A) tail protects the mRNA from digestion with nuclease and greatly increases the efficiency of translation.