- Research news
- Published:
Mighty splicing machine
Genome Biology volume 3, Article number: spotlight-20020917-02 (2002)
The spliceosome is a macromolecular machine, containing five small nuclear RNAs and a number of proteins, that is responsible for the excision of introns from pre-mRNA species. In the September 12 Nature, Zhou et al. report a complete proteomic analysis of all the polypeptide components of the spliceosome complex (Nature 2002, 419:182-185). They assembled spliceosomes on adenovirus major late pre-mRNA (AdML-M3), which contains three hairpins and can be affinity-purified using a bacteriophage coat protein fused to maltose-binding protein (MS2-MBP fusion protein). Zhou et al. demonstrate that the intact complex is highly purified and functional. They examined the protein components by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and found around 145 distinct polypeptides; including 88 known splicing-associated proteins. The rest of the proteins had not been previously linked to splicing and include several involved in regulating gene expression, transcription and mRNA export.
References
Pre-mRNA splicing in the new millennium.
Nature, [http://www.nature.com]
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Weitzman, J.B. Mighty splicing machine. Genome Biol 3, spotlight-20020917-02 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1186/gb-spotlight-20020917-02
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/gb-spotlight-20020917-02
Keywords
- Polypeptide
- Tandem Mass
- Coat Protein
- Tandem Mass Spectrometry
- Proteomic Analysis