Exonization of AluYa5 in the human ACE gene requires mutations in both 3' and 5' splice sites and is facilitated by a conserved splicing enhancer.
Ancient Alu elements have been shown to be included in mature transcripts by point mutations that improve their 5' or 3' splice sites. We have examined requirements for exonization of a younger, disease-associated AluYa5 in intron 16 of the human ACE gene. A single G>C transversion in position -3 of the new Alu exon was insufficient for Alu exonization and a significant inclusion in mRNA was only observed when improving several potential splice donor sites in the presence of 3' CAG. Since complete Alu exonization was not achieved by optimizing traditional splicing signals, including the branch site, we tested whether auxiliary elements in AluYa5 were required for constitutive inclusion. Exonization was promoted by a SELEX-predicted heptamer in Alu consensus sequence 222-228 and point mutations in highly conserved nucleotides of this heptamer decreased Alu inclusion. In addition, we show that Alu exonization was facilitated by a subset of serine/arginine-rich (SR) proteins through activation of the optimized 3' splice site. Finally, the haplotype- and allele-specific ACE minigenes generated similar splicing patterns in both ACE-expressing and non-expressing cells, suggesting that previously reported allelic association with plasma ACE activity and cardiovascular disease is not attributable to differential splicing of introns 16 and 17.
Lei
Haixin
H
University of Southampton School of Medicine, Division of Human Genetics Duthie Building, Mailpoint 808, Southampton SO16 6YD, UK.
Day
Ian N M
IN
Vorechovský
Igor
I
D020087:Alu Elements; D001483:Base Sequence; D002460:Cell Line; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D005091:Exons; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D007438:Introns; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D007703:Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D017354:Point Mutation; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D022821:RNA Splice Sites; D012326:RNA Splicing; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000737:chemistry; D038621:Regulatory Sequences, Ribonucleic Acid
D022821:RNA Splice Sites; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D038621:Regulatory Sequences, Ribonucleic Acid; D007703:Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A