G-quadruplex Structures in RNA Stimulate Mitochondrial Transcription Termination and Primer Formation

Overview

Journal Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Specialty Science

Date 2010 Aug 28

PMID 20798345

Citations 79

Authors

Paulina H Wanrooij

Jay P Uhler

Tomas Simonsson

Maria Falkenberg

Claes M Gustafsson

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The human mitochondrial transcription machinery generates the primers required for initiation of leading-strand DNA replication. According to one model, the 3' end of the primer is defined by transcription termination at conserved sequence block II (CSB II) in the mitochondrial DNA control region. We here demonstrate that this site-specific termination event is caused by G-quadruplex structures formed in nascent RNA upon transcription of CSB II. We also demonstrate that a poly-dT stretch downstream of CSB II has a modest stimulatory effect on the termination efficiency. The mechanism is reminiscent of Rho-independent transcription termination in prokaryotes, with the exception that a G-quadruplex structure replaces the hairpin loop formed in bacterial mRNA during transcription of terminator sequences.

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