Chapter 7 - RNA Processing in C. elegans

Abstract

In Caenorhabditis elegans, newly transcribed RNA is processed in several novel ways. Although introns are removed by a canonical spliceosome, they have evolved several specialized features that reflect the differences in the way they are recognized and the way they are spliced. C. elegans introns are unusually short, in part because they have no specific branch-point sequences and contain minimal polypryimidine tracts. Instead, their 3' splice site is characterized by a highly conserved consensus sequence, which alone may be sufficient to position all spliceosomal elements at the 3' end of the intron. Many RNA molecules are also trans-spliced: a capped 22nt RNA leader is donated by one of a family of specialized snRNPs and spliced to an unpaired 3' splice site, usually just upstream of the start codon. The RNA upstream of this splice site, the outron, is removed during trans-splicing and presumably degraded, making the identification of the transcriptional start site problematic. Transcripts from approximately 70% of all genes are trans-spliced. Trans-splicing has enabled the evolution of operons - multigene clusters in which a single upstream promoter drives the transcription of a polycistronic pre-mRNA. The C. elegans genome contains more than 1000 such operons. The polycistronic pre-mRNA is processed into individual gene-encoding mRNAs by coordinated upstream 3' end formation and downstream trans-splicing. An intercistronic RNA sequence, the Ur element, plays a key role in specifying downstream trans-splicing.