Separation of Spliceosome Assembly from Catalysis with Caged pre-mRNA Substrates

Steven G Chaulk; Andrew M MacMillan

doi:10.1002/1521-3773(20010601)40:11<2149::AID-ANIE2149>3.0.CO;2-Z

Separation of Spliceosome Assembly from Catalysis with Caged pre-mRNA Substrates

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2001 Jun 1;40(11):2149-2152. doi: 10.1002/1521-3773(20010601)40:11<2149::AID-ANIE2149>3.0.CO;2-Z.

Authors

Steven G Chaulk¹, Andrew M MacMillan²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry University of Toronto Toronto, ON M5S 3H6 (Canada).
² Department of Biochemistry University of Alberta Edmonton, AB T6G 2H7 (Canada) Fax: (+1) 780-492-3813.

PMID: 29712195
DOI: 10.1002/1521-3773(20010601)40:11<2149::AID-ANIE2149>3.0.CO;2-Z

Abstract

Getting spliced? Pre-mRNA splicing is catalyzed by the spliceosome, a complex assembly of proteins and RNA, which forms in an ordered fashion on the substrate. If one of the residues of the substrate is caged with a photolabile o-nitrobenzyl group, the splicing reaction can be transiently blocked, until subsequent initiation by photolysis of the complexes. This RNA-caging approach effectively separates the spliceosome assembly from the catalytic reaction and allows the two processes to be studied independently.

Keywords: mRNA; photolysis; protein-RNA interactions; splicing.