Abstract
Latent 5ʹ splice sites, not normally used, are highly abundant in human introns, but are activated under stress and in cancer, generating thousands of nonsense mRNAs. A previously proposed mechanism to suppress latent splicing was shown to be independent of NMD, with a pivotal role for initiator-tRNA independent of protein translation. To further elucidate this mechanism, we searched for nuclear proteins directly bound to initiator-tRNA. Starting with UV-crosslinking, we identified nucleolin (NCL) interacting directly and specifically with initiator-tRNA in the nucleus, but not in the cytoplasm. Next, we show the association of ini-tRNA and NCL with pre-mRNA. We further show that recovery of suppression of latent splicing by initiator-tRNA complementation is NCL dependent. Finally, upon nucleolin knockdown we show activation of latent splicing in hundreds of coding transcripts having important cellular functions. We thus propose nucleolin, a component of the endogenous spliceosome, through its direct binding to initiator-tRNA and its effect on latent splicing, as the first protein of a nuclear quality control mechanism regulating splice site selection to protect cells from latent splicing that can generate defective mRNAs.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 333-352 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | RNA Biology |
Volume | 19 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© This work was authored as part of the Contributor’s official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
Keywords
- 5MODIFIER LETTER PRIME splice site selection
- RNA sequencing
- alternative splicing
- bioinformatics analysis
- endogenous spliceosome
- latent splice sites
- latent splicing
- mass spectrometry
- splicing regulation
- suppression of splicing