Poster abstracts

Poster number 54 submitted by Megan McGervey

Small Nuclear RNAs in nuclear precursor messenger RNA Splicing

Megan McGervey (BGES Cleveland State University), Kavleen Sikand (BGES Cleveland State University), Girish Shukla (BGES Cleveland State University)

Abstract:
The removal of nuclear pre-mRNA introns by splicing is crucial to the expression of most genes in higher eukaryotes. The U12-dependent spliceosome catalyzes the removal of the less abundant class of U12-dependent introns. Despite their low abundance, U12-dependent introns are found in both tissue specific and ubiquitously expressed genes, some of which carry out essential cellular functions such as DNA replication and repair, transcription, RNA processing, and translation. Accordingly, the correct identification and excision of minor class introns by the U12-dependent spliceosome is essential. This study seeks to investigate the structure-function relationship of the U11 snRNA, a small nuclear RNA that functions in U12-dependent pre-mRNA processing. Because the U11 snRNP resembles the U1 snRNP in the U2-dependent spliceosome, it is thought to be the analogue of U1 for splicing in this rare class of introns. We have developed a U11 mediated 5’ splice site triple mutation suppressor assay for a U12-dependent intron. Using this suppressor system, currently we are generating a large number of U11 snRNA suppressors to identify functionally relevant regions.

Keywords: Splicing, suppressor assay, U11 snRNA