ABSTRACT
Premature translation termination codons are common causes of genetic disorders. mRNAs with such mutations are degraded by a surveillance mechanism termed nonsense-mediated decay (NMD), which represents a phylogenetically widely conserved post-transcriptional mechanism for the quality control of gene expression. How NMD-competent mRNPs are formed and specified remains a central question. Here, we have used human beta-globin mRNA as a model system to address the role of splicing and polyadenylation for human NMD. We show that (i) splicing is an indispensable component of the human beta-globin NMD pathway, which cannot be compensated for by exonic beta-globin 'failsafe' sequences; (ii) the spatial requirements of human beta-globin NMD, as signified by the maximal distance of the nonsense mutation to the final exon-exon junction, are less constrained than in yeast; and (iii) non-polyadenylated mRNAs with a histone 3' end are NMD competent. Thus, the formation of NMD-competent mRNP particles critically depends on splicing but does not require the presence of a poly(A) tail.
Subject(s)
Globins/genetics , RNA Splicing/genetics , Ribonucleoproteins/genetics , Ribonucleoproteins/metabolism , Base Sequence , Codon, Nonsense/genetics , DNA Primers/genetics , HeLa Cells , Humans , In Vitro Techniques , Mutation , Poly A/metabolism , RNA, Messenger/genetics , RNA, Messenger/metabolism , Saccharomyces cerevisiae/genetics , Saccharomyces cerevisiae/metabolism , TransfectionABSTRACT
Premature translation termination codons resulting from nonsense or frameshift mutations are common causes of genetic disorders. Complications arising from the synthesis of C-terminally truncated polypeptides can be avoided by 'nonsense-mediated decay' of the mutant mRNAs. Premature termination codons in the beta-globin mRNA cause the common recessive form of beta-thalassemia when the affected mRNA is degraded, but the more severe dominant form when the mRNA escapes nonsense-mediated decay. We demonstrate that cells distinguish a premature termination codon within the beta-globin mRNA from the physiological translation termination codon by a two-step specification mechanism. According to the binary specification model proposed here, the positions of splice junctions are first tagged during splicing in the nucleus, defining a stop codon operationally as a premature termination codon by the presence of a 3' splicing tag. In the second step, cytoplasmic translation is required to validate the 3' splicing tag for decay of the mRNA. This model explains nonsense-mediated decay on the basis of conventional molecular mechanisms and allows us to propose a common principle for nonsense-mediated decay from yeast to man.
