Identification, organization and processing intermediates of the putative precursors of Xenopus vitellogenin messenger RNA.

To understand the mechanism of estrogen-induced activation of the vitellogenin genes in the liver of Xenopus, it is essential to characterize the transcriptional products of these genes. In this paper we describe large nuclear RNAs containing vitellogenin mRNA sequences as revealed by hybridization of cloned vitellogenin cDNAs to nuclear RNA separated on agarose gels. Putative vitellogenin mRNA precursors, which are recovered as poly(A)-containing RNA, have been identified for the four known vitellogenin mRNAs. From electron microscopic analysis of R loops, prepared between enriched mRNA precursors and cDNA specific for the A1 vitellogenin mRNA, we conclude that the precursor molecules contain sequences complementary to vitellogenin mRNA which are interrupted by additional RNA segments probably representing transcribed introns. Within the 3.7 kb of the 3' end of the A1 vitellogenin mRNA we have discovered seven large and at least five small transcribed introns. Some of the R loops have been found to contain only a few transcribed introns, and we assume that they represent processing intermediates. Comparison of these putative intermediates suggests that the splicing order of different introns does not follow a single pathway.