Regulation of splicing: the importance of being translatable.
RNA sequences that conform to the consensus sequence of 5' splice sites but are not used for splicing occur frequently in protein coding genes. Mutational analyses have shown that suppression of splicing at such latent sites may be dictated by the necessity to maintain an open reading frame in the mRNA. Here we show that stop codon frequency in introns having latent 5' splice sites is significantly greater than that of introns lacking such sites and significantly greater than the expected occurrence by chance alone. Both observations suggest the occurrence of a general mechanism that recognizes the mRNA reading frame in the context of pre-mRNA.
Miriami
Elana
E
Department of Genetics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.
Sperling
Ruth
R
Sperling
Joseph
J
Motro
Uzi
U
D006801:Humans; D007438:Introns / Q000235:genetics*; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D012322:RNA Precursors / Q000235:genetics; D012323:RNA Processing, Post-Transcriptional; D012326:RNA Splicing; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
D012322:RNA Precursors; D012333:RNA, Messenger