Maturase
Maturase K
Plant plastidial gene
Maturase K (matK) is a plant plastidial gene.[1] 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.[2] Amongst other maturases, this protein retains only a well conserved domain X and remnants of a reverse transcriptase domain.[3]
Universal matK primers can be used for DNA barcoding of angiosperms.[4]