Protein-free Spliceosomal SnRNAs Catalyze a Reaction That Resembles the First Step of Splicing

Overview

Journal RNA

Specialty Molecular Biology

Date 2007 Oct 18

PMID 17940139

Citations 26

Authors

Saba Valadkhan

Afshin Mohammadi

Chaim Wachtel

James L Manley

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Splicing of introns from mRNA precursors is a two-step reaction performed by the spliceosome, an immense cellular machine consisting of over 200 different proteins and five small RNAs (snRNAs). We previously demonstrated that fragments of two of these RNAs, U6 and U2, can catalyze by themselves a splicing-related reaction, involving one of the two substrates of the first step of splicing, the branch site substrate. Here we show that these same RNAs can catalyze a reaction between RNA sequences that resemble the 5' splice site and the branch site, the two reactants of the first step of splicing. The reaction is dependent on the sequence of the 5' splice site consensus sequence and the catalytically essential domains of U6, and thus it resembles the authentic splicing reaction. Our results demonstrate the ability of protein-free snRNAs to recognize the sequences involved in the first splicing step and to perform splicing-related catalysis between these two pre-mRNA-like substrates.

Citing Articles

U5 snRNA Interactions With Exons Ensure Splicing Precision.

Artemyeva-Isman O, Porter A Front Genet. 2021; 12:676971.

PMID: 34276781 PMC: 8283771. DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2021.676971.

The Chloroplast -Splicing RNA-Protein Supercomplex from the Green Alga .

Kuck U, Schmitt O Cells. 2021; 10(2).

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Role of the central junction in folding topology of the protein-free human U2-U6 snRNA complex.

Chu H, Perea W, Greenbaum N RNA. 2020; 26(7):836-850.

PMID: 32220895 PMC: 7297123. DOI: 10.1261/rna.073379.119.

Comparison of Alternative Splicing Junction Detection Tools Using RNA-Seq Data.

Ding L, Rath E, Bai Y Curr Genomics. 2017; 18(3):268-277.

PMID: 28659722 PMC: 5476949. DOI: 10.2174/1389202918666170215125048.

Group II intron lariat: Structural insights into the spliceosome.

Peters J, Toor N RNA Biol. 2015; 12(9):913-7.

PMID: 26121424 PMC: 4615233. DOI: 10.1080/15476286.2015.1066956.

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