Abstract
The exosome is a major eukaryotic nuclease located in both the nucleus and the cytoplasm that contributes to the processing, quality control and/or turnover of a large number of cellular RNAs1,2,3,4,5,6. This large macromolecular assembly has been described as a 3′→5′ exonuclease1 and shown to contain a nine-subunit ring structure evolutionarily related to archaeal exosome-like complexes and bacterial polynucleotide phosphorylases. Recent results have shown that, unlike its prokaryotic counterparts, the yeast and human ring structures are catalytically inactive. In contrast, the exonucleolytic activity of the yeast exosome core was shown to be mediated by the RNB domain of the eukaryote-specific Dis3 subunit7,8,9. Here we show, using in vitro assays, that yeast Dis3 has an additional endoribonuclease activity mediated by the PIN domain located at the amino terminus of this multidomain protein. Simultaneous inactivation of the endonucleolytic and exonucleolytic activities of the exosome core generates a synthetic growth phenotype in vivo, supporting a physiological function for the PIN domain. This activity is responsible for the cleavage of some natural exosome substrates, independently of exonucleolytic degradation. In contrast with current models, our results show that eukaryotic exosome cores have both endonucleolytic and exonucleolytic activities, mediated by two distinct domains of the Dis3 subunit. The mode of action of eukaryotic exosome cores in RNA processing and degradation should be reconsidered, taking into account the cooperation between its multiple ribonucleolytic activities.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
EXOSC10 is required for RPA assembly and controlled DNA end resection at DNA double-strand breaks
Nature Communications Open Access 13 May 2019
-
The splicing factor SRSF3 is functionally connected to the nuclear RNA exosome for intronless mRNA decay
Scientific Reports Open Access 27 August 2018
-
Substrate specificity of human MCPIP1 endoribonuclease
Scientific Reports Open Access 09 May 2018
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout



References
Mitchell, P. et al. The exosome: a conserved eukaryotic RNA processing complex containing multiple 3′→5′ exoribonucleases. Cell 91, 457–466 (1997)
Allmang, C. et al. Functions of the exosome in rRNA, snoRNA and snRNA synthesis. EMBO J. 18, 5399–5410 (1999)
Anderson, J. S. & Parker, R. P. The 3′ to 5′ degradation of yeast mRNAs is a general mechanism for mRNA turnover that requires the SKI2 DEVH box protein and 3′ to 5′ exonucleases of the exosome complex. EMBO J. 17, 1497–1506 (1998)
Isken, O. & Maquat, L. E. Quality control of eukaryotic mRNA: safeguarding cells from abnormal mRNA function. Genes Dev. 21, 1833–1856 (2007)
Wyers, F. et al. Cryptic pol II transcripts are degraded by a nuclear quality control pathway involving a new poly(A) polymerase. Cell 121, 725–737 (2005)
Lebreton, A. & Séraphin, B. Exosome-mediated quality control: Substrate recruitment and molecular activity. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1779, 558–565 (2008)
Dziembowski, A., Lorentzen, E., Conti, E. & Séraphin, B. A single subunit, Dis3, is essentially responsible for yeast exosome core activity. Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. 14, 15–22 (2007)
Liu, Q., Greimann, J. C. & Lima, C. D. Reconstitution, activities, and structure of the eukaryotic RNA exosome. Erratum. Cell 131, 188–189 (2007)
Liu, Q., Greimann, J. C. & Lima, C. D. Reconstitution, activities, and structure of the eukaryotic RNA exosome. Cell 127, 1223–1237 (2006)
Hernandez, H. et al. Subunit architecture of multimeric complexes isolated directly from cells. EMBO Rep. 7, 605–610 (2006)
Frazao, C. et al. Unravelling the dynamics of RNA degradation by ribonuclease II and its RNA-bound complex. Nature 443, 110–114 (2006)
Lorentzen, E. et al. Structure of the active subunit of the yeast exosome core, Rrp44: diverse modes of substrate recruitment in the RNase II nuclease family. Mol. Cell 29, 717–728 (2008)
Zuo, Y. et al. Structural basis for processivity and single-strand specificity of RNase II. Mol. Cell 24, 149–156 (2006)
Allmang, C. et al. The yeast exosome and human PM-Scl are related complexes of 3′→5′ exonucleases. Genes Dev. 13, 2148–2158 (1999)
Arcus, V. L. et al. Distant structural homology leads to the functional characterization of an archaeal PIN domain as an exonuclease. J. Biol. Chem. 279, 16471–16478 (2004)
Glavan, F., Behm-Ansmant, I., Izaurralde, E. & Conti, E. Structures of the PIN domains of SMG6 and SMG5 reveal a nuclease within the mRNA surveillance complex. EMBO J. 25, 5117–5125 (2006)
Belli, G. et al. An activator/repressor dual system allows tight tetracycline-regulated gene expression in budding yeast. Nucleic Acids Res. 26, 942–947 (1998)
Couttet, P. et al. Messenger RNA deadenylylation precedes decapping in mammalian cells. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 94, 5628–5633 (1997)
Mandl, C. W., Heinz, F. X., Puchhammer-Stockl, E. & Kunz, C. Sequencing the termini of capped viral RNA by 5′-3′ ligation and PCR. Biotechniques 10, 484–486 (1991)
Kadaba, S. et al. Nuclear surveillance and degradation of hypomodified initiator tRNAMet in S. cerevisiae . Genes Dev. 18, 1227–1240 (2004)
LaCava, J. et al. RNA degradation by the exosome is promoted by a nuclear polyadenylation complex. Cell 121, 713–724 (2005)
Vanacova, S. et al. A new yeast poly(A) polymerase complex involved in RNA quality control. PLoS Biol. 3, e189 (2005)
Carpousis, A. J. The RNA degradosome of Escherichia coli: an mRNA-degrading machine assembled on RNase E. Annu. Rev. Microbiol. 61, 71–87 (2007)
Eberle, A. B., Lykke-Andersen, S., Mühlemann, O. & Jensen, T. H. SMG6 promotes endonucleolytic cleavage of nonsense mRNA in human cells. Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. (in the press)
Schaeffer, D. et al. The exosome contains domains with specific endoribonuclease, exoribonuclease and cytoplasmic mRNA decay activities. Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. (in the press)
Bonneaud, N. et al. A family of low and high copy replicative, integrative and single-stranded S. cerevisiae/E. coli shuttle vectors. Yeast 7, 609–615 (1991)
Rigaut, G. et al. A generic protein purification method for protein complex characterization and proteome exploration. Nature Biotechnol. 17, 1030–1032 (1999)
Daugeron, M. C., Mauxion, F. & Séraphin, B. The yeast POP2 gene encodes a nuclease involved in mRNA deadenylation. Nucleic Acids Res. 29, 2448–2455 (2001)
Saveanu, C. et al. Nog2p, a putative GTPase associated with pre-60S subunits and required for late 60S maturation steps. EMBO J. 20, 6475–6484 (2001)
Acknowledgements
We thank E. Conti and J. Basquin for providing the Dis3 PIN domain expression construct and 6×His-SUMO protease, and E. Conti, E. Lorentzen, J. Kufel and members of our groups for insightful discussions. This work was supported by La Ligue contre le Cancer (Équipe Labellisée 2008), Agence Nationale de la Recherche project CUTs, CNRS, ESF RNA Quality program (project EUxosome) and the FP6 EU grant 3D repertoire, and an EMBO installation grant. R.T. is the recipient of the Stipend for Young Researchers from the Foundation for Polish Science and was supported through a Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw intramural grant.
Author Contributions R.T. expressed and purified the recombinant proteins and performed all the in vitro experiments under the supervision of A.D. A.L. performed all in vivo experiments under the supervision of B.S. All authors discussed the results and wrote the paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
This file contains Supplementary Figures S1-S9 with Legends and Supplementary Tables S1-S3. (PDF 1653 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lebreton, A., Tomecki, R., Dziembowski, A. et al. Endonucleolytic RNA cleavage by a eukaryotic exosome. Nature 456, 993–996 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07480
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07480
This article is cited by
-
LISTERIN E3 Ubiquitin Ligase and Ribosome-Associated Quality Control (RQC) Mechanism
Molecular Neurobiology (2021)
-
EXOSC10 is required for RPA assembly and controlled DNA end resection at DNA double-strand breaks
Nature Communications (2019)
-
Substrate specificity of human MCPIP1 endoribonuclease
Scientific Reports (2018)
-
The splicing factor SRSF3 is functionally connected to the nuclear RNA exosome for intronless mRNA decay
Scientific Reports (2018)
-
Reconstitution of the complete pathway of ITS2 processing at the pre-ribosome
Nature Communications (2017)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.