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. 1990 Jun;10(6):2960–2965. doi: 10.1128/mcb.10.6.2960

Base pairing between the 3' exon and an internal guide sequence increases 3' splice site specificity in the Tetrahymena self-splicing rRNA intron.

E R Suh 1, R B Waring 1
PMCID: PMC360659  PMID: 2342465

Abstract

It has been proposed that recognition of the 3' splice site in many group I introns involves base pairing between the start of the 3' exon and a region of the intron known as the internal guide sequence (R. W. Davies, R. B. Waring, J. Ray, T. A. Brown, and C. Scazzocchio, Nature [London] 300:719-724, 1982). We have examined this hypothesis, using the self-splicing rRNA intron from Tetrahymena thermophila. Mutations in the 3' exon that weaken this proposed pairing increased use of a downstream cryptic 3' splice site. Compensatory mutations in the guide sequence that restore this pairing resulted in even stronger selection of the normal 3' splice site. These changes in 3' splice site usage were more pronounced in the background of a mutation (414A) which resulted in an adenine instead of a guanine being the last base of the intron. These results show that the proposed pairing (P10) plays an important role in ensuring that cryptic 3' splice sites are selected against. Surprisingly, the 414A mutation alone did not result in activation of the cryptic 3' splice site.

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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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