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. 1992 Jan;12(1):56–67. doi: 10.1128/mcb.12.1.56

An intergenic G-rich region in Leishmania tarentolae kinetoplast maxicircle DNA is a pan-edited cryptogene encoding ribosomal protein S12.

D A Maslov 1, N R Sturm 1, B M Niner 1, E S Gruszynski 1, M Peris 1, L Simpson 1
PMCID: PMC364069  PMID: 1370342

Abstract

Six short G-rich intergenic regions in the maxicircle of Leishmania tarentolae are conserved in location and polarity in two other kinetoplastid species. We show here that G-rich region 6 (G6) represents a pan-edited cryptogene which contains at least two domains edited independently in a 3'-to-5' manner connected by short unedited regions. In the completely edited RNA, 117 uridines are added at 49 sites and 32 uridines are deleted at 13 sites, creating a translated 85-amino-acid polypeptide. Similar polypeptides are probably encoded by pan-edited G6 transcripts in two other species. The G6 polypeptide has significant sequence similarity to the family of S12 ribosomal proteins. A minicircle-encoded gRNA overlaps 12 editing sites in G6 mRNA, and chimeric gRNA/mRNA molecules were shown to exist, in agreement with the transesterification model for editing.

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Selected References

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