Latent splice sites and stop codons revisited

Quality control of eukaryotic mRNA: safeguarding cells from abnormal mRNA function

Cells routinely make mistakes. Some mistakes are encoded by the genome and may manifest as inherited or acquired diseases. Other mistakes occur because metabolic processes can be intrinsically inefficient or inaccurate. Consequently, cells have developed mechanisms to minimize the damage that would result if mistakes went unchecked. Here, we provide an overview of three quality control mechanisms--nonsense-mediated mRNA decay, nonstop mRNA decay, and no-go mRNA decay. Each surveys mRNAs during translation and degrades those mRNAs that direct aberrant protein synthesis. Along with other types of quality control that occur during the complex processes of mRNA biogenesis, these mRNA surveillance mechanisms help to ensure the integrity of protein-encoding gene expression.

Exon skipping through the creation of a putative exonic splicing silencer as a consequence of the cystic fibrosis mutation R553X

Nonsense mutations that occur more than 50 bases upstream of terminal spliced junctions are generally thought to lead to degradation of the corresponding transcripts by the process of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay. It has also been proposed that some nonsense mutations may affect splicing by the process of nonsense-associated altered splicing (NAS), or by the disruption of a splicing regulatory element. In this study, the effect of the R553X mutation on the splicing of exon 11 of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator gene was investigated. Evidence that R553X causes exon 11 to skip through the creation of a putative exonic splicing silencer (ESS) was provided. The putative ESS appears to be active when located immediately upstream of a 5' splice site. These findings argue against the possibility that R553X-associated exon 11 skipping is caused by NAS. The study further suggests that aminoglycoside antibiotic treatment would not be effective for patients with the R553X mutation, owing to the skipping of exon 11, and further emphasises the need for detailed mechanistic characterisation of the consequences of nonsense disease mutations.

AUG sequences are required to sustain nonsense-codon-mediated suppression of splicing

More than 90% of human genes are rich in intronic latent 5' splice sites whose utilization in pre-mRNA splicing would introduce in-frame stop codons into the resultant mRNAs. We have therefore hypothesized that suppression of splicing (SOS) at latent 5' splice sites regulates alternative 5' splice site selection in a way that prevents the production of toxic nonsense mRNAs and verified this idea by showing that the removal of such in-frame stop codons is sufficient to activate latent splicing. Splicing control by SOS requires recognition of the mRNA reading frame, presumably recognizing the start codon sequence. Here we show that AUG sequences are indeed essential for SOS. Although protein translation does not seem to be required for SOS, the first AUG is shown here to be necessary but not sufficient. We further show that latent splicing can be elicited upon treatment with pactamycin-a drug known to block translation by its ability to recognize an RNA fold-but not by treatment with other drugs that inhibit translation through other mechanisms. The effect of pactamycin on SOS is dependent neither on steady-state translation nor on the pioneer round of translation. This effect is found for both transfected and endogenous genes, indicating that SOS is a natural mechanism.

Involvement of SR Proteins in mRNA Surveillance

Nonsense mutations influence several aspects of gene expression, including mRNA stability and splicing fidelity, but the mechanism by which premature termination codons (PTCs) can apparently affect splice-site selection remains elusive. We used a model human beta-globin gene with duplicated 5' splice sites (5'ss) and found that PTCs inserted between the two 5'ss do not directly influence splicing in this system. Instead, their apparent effect on 5'ss selection in vivo is an indirect result of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), as conditions that eliminated NMD also abrogated the effect on splicing. Remarkably, we found an unexpected function of SR proteins in targeting several mRNAs with PTCs to the NMD pathway. Overexpression of various SR proteins strongly enhanced NMD, and this effect required an RS domain. Our data argue against a universal role of PTCs in regulating pre-mRNA splicing and reveal an additional function of SR proteins in eukaryotic gene expression.