Assembly of the Mitochondrial Membrane System. Processing of the Apocytochrome B Precursor RNAs in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae D273-10B

The DNA sequence of the apocytochrome b gene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae D273-10B contains two intervening sequences (Nobrega, F. G., and Tzagoloff, A. (1980) J. Biol. Chem. 255, 9828-9837). The exon-intron boundaries of the gene have been determined in this study from the sequence of the DNA which was copied from the mRNA. A protein of 385 amino acid residues is predicted from the 1155-nucleotide long coding regions. Northern blot analysis of total mitochondrial RNA, probed with restriction fragments from both exon and intron regions of the gene, reveals a 4.3-kilobase (kb) transcript containing both introns and two partially spliced intermediates, one (2.9 kb) lacking the first intron and the other (3.6 kb) lacking the second intron. The most abundant transcript (2.1 kb) hybridizes only to exon probes and is presumed to the fully spliced mRNA. S1 nuclease mapping of the purified mRNA indicates existence of two separate RNAs with identical 3' termini but differing by approximately 217 nucleotides at their 5' ends. The larger transcript has a 950-nucleotide nontranslated leader. Analyses of the RNA species present in various rho- and mit- mutants indicate that: 1) exon mutants process both introns, albeit not as efficiently as wild type, 2) intron mutants blocked in the excision of the first or second intron are capable of processing the alternate intron, suggesting a non-obligatory order of excision of the two intervening sequences, and 3) excision of the second intron occurs in rho- mutants and therefore does not require a mitochondrial translation product.