Polyadenylation precedes splicing in vitro.

Vertebrate premessenger RNAs are usually spliced and polyadenylated. In vivo analysis of the relative kinetics of the two reactions is difficult. We have used in vitro processing systems to investigate the order of splicing and polyadenylation of chimeric precursor RNAs containing a single intron and a poly(A) site. Polyadenylated, but not spliced, intermediate RNA appeared first and reached a low steady-state level early during incubation, properties consistent with its being a reaction intermediate in the production of doubly-processed spliced and polyadenylated product RNA. The kinetics of polyadenylation suggested that polyadenylated RNA was the only intermediate in the production of doubly-processed RNA. Spliced, but not polyadenylated, RNA also appeared. This species, however, continued to accumulate during reaction, and could not be chased into product spliced and polyadenylated RNA. These data support a preferred order of reaction for 3' terminal introns and exons in which polyadenylation precedes splicing.