The U7 small nuclear RNA (U7 snRNA) is an RNA molecule and a component of the small nuclear ribonucleoprotein complex (U7 snRNP).

The U7 snRNA is required for histone pre-mRNA processing.

The 5' end of the U7 snRNA binds the HDE (histone downstream element), a conserved purine-rich region, located 15 nucleotides downstream the histone mRNA cleavage site.

[1][2] The binding of the HDE region by the U7 snRNA, through complementary base-pairing, is an important step for the future recruitment of cleavage factors during histone pre-mRNA processing.

[3] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81]