Topper J N, Clayton D A
Department of Developmental Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, CA 94305-5427.
Nucleic Acids Res. 1990 Feb 25;18(4):793-9. doi: 10.1093/nar/18.4.793.
Vertebrate cells contain a site-specific endoribonuclease (RNase MRP) that cleaves mitochondrial RNA transcribed from the origin of leading-strand mitochondrial DNA replication. This report presents the characterization of the human enzyme and its essential RNA component. Human RNase MRP is a ribonucleoprotein with a nucleus-encoded RNA of 265 nucleotides. As expected, the single-copy RNA coding region is homologous (84%) to the corresponding mouse gene; surprisingly, at least 700 nucleotides of the immediate 5'-flanking region are conserved. The 265-nucleotide MRP RNA and an MRP RNA cleavage product representing the 3'-terminal 108 nucleotides exist in nuclear and mitochondrial RNA isolates; the larger MRP RNA is present in greatest abundance in the nucleus. The putative processing site within the 265-nucleotide MRP RNA is offset from that of mouse MRP RNA, but in each case cleavage is precise and occurs at the sequence ANCCCGC. Oligonucleotide-mediated inhibition experiments reveal that both the 5' and 3' portions of the MRP RNA are involved in cleavage by RNase MRP; this implies that full length MRP RNA complexed with proteins is an active species in vertebrate cells.
脊椎动物细胞含有一种位点特异性核糖核酸内切酶(RNase MRP),它能切割从前导链线粒体DNA复制起点转录而来的线粒体RNA。本报告介绍了人类该酶及其必需RNA成分的特性。人类RNase MRP是一种核糖核蛋白,其核编码RNA为265个核苷酸。正如预期的那样,单拷贝RNA编码区与相应的小鼠基因同源(84%);令人惊讶的是,紧邻的5'侧翼区至少700个核苷酸是保守的。265个核苷酸的MRP RNA和代表3'末端108个核苷酸的MRP RNA切割产物存在于核RNA和线粒体RNA分离物中;较大的MRP RNA在细胞核中含量最丰富。265个核苷酸的MRP RNA中的推定加工位点与小鼠MRP RNA的不同,但在每种情况下切割都是精确的,且发生在序列ANCCCGC处。寡核苷酸介导的抑制实验表明,MRP RNA的5'和3'部分都参与了RNase MRP的切割;这意味着与蛋白质复合的全长MRP RNA在脊椎动物细胞中是一种活性物质。