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. 1994 Jun 11;22(11):1981–1987. doi: 10.1093/nar/22.11.1981

Interaction between the first and last nucleotides of pre-mRNA introns is a determinant of 3' splice site selection in S. cerevisiae.

G Chanfreau 1, P Legrain 1, B Dujon 1, A Jacquier 1
PMCID: PMC308110  PMID: 8029003

Abstract

The splicing of group II and nuclear pre-mRNAs introns occurs via a similar splicing pathway and some of the RNA-RNA interactions involved in these splicing reactions show structural similarities. Recently, genetic analyses performed in a group II intron and the yeast nuclear actin gene suggested that non Watson-Crick interactions between intron boundaries are important for the second splicing step efficiency in both classes of introns. We here show that, in the yeast nuclear rp51A intron, a G to A mutation at the first position activates cryptic 3' splice sites with the sequences UAC/ or UAA/. Moreover, the natural 3' splice site could be reactivated by a G to C substitution of the last intron nucleotide. These results demonstrate that the interaction between the first and last intron nucleotides is a conserved feature of nuclear pre-mRNA splicing in yeast and is involved in the mechanism of 3' splice site selection.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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