title: Introns in protein-coding genes in Archaea.
abstract: Introns in protein-coding genes are ubiquitous in eukaryotic cells, but pre-mRNA splicing has yet to be reported in archaeal and its viral genomes. We present evidence of introns in genes encoding a homolog of eukaryotic Cbf5p (centromere-binding factor 5; a subunit of a small nucleolar ribonucleoprotein) in three Archaea; Aeropyrum pernix, Sulfolobus solfataricus and Sulfolobus tokodaii. Splicing of pre-mRNAs in vivo was demonstrated by reverse transcriptase-mediated polymerase chain reaction. The exon-intron boundaries of these genes are predicted to be folded into a structure similar to the bulge-helix-bulge motif, suggesting that splicing of these pre-mRNAs probably depends on the splicing system elucidated for archaeal pre-tRNAs and rRNAs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Chemistry, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. ywatanab@m.u-tokyo.ac.jp
authors.forename: Yoh-ichi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Shin-ichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yokobori
authors.forename: Toshiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Inaba
authors.forename: Akihiko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yamagishi
authors.forename: Tairo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Oshima
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kawarabayasi
authors.forename: Hisasi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.forename: Kiyoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kita
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D019843:Archaeal Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D001483:Base Sequence; D019641:DNA, Archaeal; D019620:Desulfurococcaceae / Q000235:genetics*; D019766:Genes, Archaeal; D006836:Hydro-Lyases; D007438:Introns; D008869:Microtubule-Associated Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012322:RNA Precursors; D012326:RNA Splicing; D016601:RNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D017411:Ribonucleoproteins, Small Nuclear; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D016944:Sulfolobus / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D019843:Archaeal Proteins; D019641:DNA, Archaeal; D008869:Microtubule-Associated Proteins; D012322:RNA Precursors; D016601:RNA-Binding Proteins; D017411:Ribonucleoproteins, Small Nuclear; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D006836:Hydro-Lyases; C082278:CBF5 protein, S cerevisiae