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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1995 Dec 5;92(25):11524–11528. doi: 10.1073/pnas.92.25.11524

An amino acid sequence motif sufficient for subnuclear localization of an arginine/serine-rich splicing factor.

M L Hedley 1, H Amrein 1, T Maniatis 1
PMCID: PMC40434  PMID: 8524796

Abstract

We have identified an amino acid sequence in the Drosophila Transformer (Tra) protein that is capable of directing a heterologous protein to nuclear speckles, regions of the nucleus previously shown to contain high concentrations of spliceosomal small nuclear RNAs and splicing factors. This sequence contains a nucleoplasmin-like bipartite nuclear localization signal (NLS) and a repeating arginine/serine (RS) dipeptide sequence adjacent to a short stretch of basic amino acids. Sequence comparisons from a number of other splicing factors that colocalize to nuclear speckles reveal the presence of one or more copies of this motif. We propose a two-step subnuclear localization mechanism for splicing factors. The first step is transport across the nuclear envelope via the nucleoplasmin-like NLS, while the second step is association with components in the speckled domain via the RS dipeptide sequence.

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Selected References

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