Abstract
Group I introns include many mitochondrial ribosomal RNA and messenger RNA introns and the nuclear rRNA introns of Tetrahymena and Physarum1–6. The splicing of precursor RNAs containing these introns is a two-step reaction. Cleavage at the 5′ splice site precedes cleavage at the 3′ splice site, the latter cleavage being coupled with exon ligation7–9. Following the first cleavage, the 5′ exon must somehow be held in place for ligation. We have now tested the reactivity of two self-splicing group I RNAs, the Tetrahymena pre-rRNA and the intron 1 portion of the Neurospora mitochondrial cytochrome b (cob) pre-mRNA, in the inter-molecular exon ligation reaction (splicing in trans) described by Inoue et al.10. The different sequence specificity of the reactions supports the idea that the nucleotides immediately upstream from the 5′ splice site are base-paired to an internal, 5′ exon-binding site, in agreement with RNA structure models proposed by Davies and co-workers2,3 and others4,5,11. The internal binding site is proposed to be involved in the formation of a structure that specifies the 5′ splice site and, following the first step of splicing, to hold the 5′ exon in place for exon ligation.
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Garriga, G., Lambowitz, A., Inoue, T. et al. Mechanism of recognition of the 5′ splice site in self-splicing group I introns. Nature 322, 86–89 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1038/322086a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/322086a0
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