Re: Do archae(archbacteria) have INTRONS and do they undergo splicing.

The short answer is "No. The genes of Archaebacterial species do not have introns like the genes of Eukaryotic species do." but I never just give the short answer.

The more interesting parts of the answer are "How do we know that Archaea do not have introns?" and "Why do we think Archaea are different enough from Eubacteria and Eukaryotes to deserve their own superkingdom status?" and "How do we look up more information?"

We know that arcaea do not have introns because researchers have now sequenced the complete genomes of several diverse members of the superkingdom, and the genomes contain contiguous open reading frames without introns.

Archaebacteria have many biochemical attributes which set them apart from eubacteria (different lifestyles, different cell membrane and cell wall componenets, different metabolic pathways etc.). The gene sequences of Archaebacteria also are very different from either eubacteria or eukaryotes. Some Archaea genes are noticably more similar to eukaryote genes than to eubacterial genes (the elongation factor 2 gene for one example) but most Archaea genes are roughly equidistant from both eubacteria and eukaryotes.

All life forms known to man on earth (with the exception of viruses, prions and other replicating entities that are not entirely self- replicating) share a great deal of their architechture. For example, they all use nucleic acids for storing genetic information, they all use 2- subunit ribosomes that contain RNAs and proteins for translation of mRNA into protein, they all use the same genetic code. So it appears as if all life shared a single common ancestor (or more accurately, it appears as if we all shared a group of common ancestors). The next questions are about when this was, and why there are just 3 major lineages surviving.

I found the Archaea genomes by going to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and using their Taxonomy browser:
NCBI Taxonomy: Archaea

More information on the introns that eubacteria and archaebacteria do have (they are called the class II introns) can be found by searching the NCBI PubMed ENTREZ system:
ENTREZ PubMed