Maturase K

Maturase K (matK) is a plant plastidial gene, although higher plants have it moved into the nuclear genome. The protein it encodes is an organelle intron maturase, a protein that splices Group II introns. It is essential for in vivo splicing of Group II introns. Amongst other maturases, this protein retains only a well conserved domain X and remnants of a reverse transcriptase domain. Maturase K (matK) is a plant plastidial gene, although higher plants have it moved into the nuclear genome. The protein it encodes is an organelle intron maturase, a protein that splices Group II introns. It is essential for in vivo splicing of Group II introns. Amongst other maturases, this protein retains only a well conserved domain X and remnants of a reverse transcriptase domain. Universal matK primers can be used for DNA barcoding of angiosperms.