Poison exon

Poison exons (PEs); also called premature termination codon (PTC) exons or nonsense-mediated decay (NMD) exons] are a class of cassette exons that contain PTCs. Inclusion of a PE in a transcript targets the transcript for degradation via NMD. PEs are generally highly conserved elements of the genome and are thought to have important regulatory roles in biology. Targeting PE inclusion or exclusion in certain transcripts is being evaluated as a therapeutic strategy.