Julia A. Chekanova

As part of our genetic analysis of mRNA decay in Escherichia coli K-12, we examined the effect of the pcnB gene [encoding poly(A) polymerase I] on message stability. Eliminating poly(A) polymerase I (delta pcnB) dramatically stabilized the lpp, ompA, and trxA transcripts. The half-lives of individual mRNAs were increased in both a delta pcnB single mutant and a delta pcnB pnp-7 rnb-500 rne-1 multiple mutant. We also found mRNA decay intermediates in delta pcnB mutants that were not detected in control strains. By end-labeling total E. coli RNA with [32P]pCp and T4 RNA ligase and then digesting the RNA with RNase A and T1, we showed that many RNAs in a wild-type strain contained poly(A) tails ranging from 10 nt to > 50 nt long. When polynucleotide phosphorylase, RNase II, and RNase E were absent, the length (> 100 nt) and number (10- to 20-fold) of the poly(A) tails increased. After transcription initiation was stopped with rifampicin, polyadenylylation apparently continued. Deleting the structural gene for poly(A) polymerase I (pcnB) reduced the amount of 3'-terminal poly(A) sequences by > 90%. We propose a model for the role of polyadenylylation in mRNA decay.

Eukaryotic 3'-->5' exonucleolytic activities are essential for a wide variety of reactions of RNA maturation and metabolism, including processing of rRNA, small nuclear RNA, and small nucleolar RNA, and mRNA decay. Two related but distinct forms of a complex containing 10 3'-->5' exonucleases, the exosome, are found in yeast nucleus and cytoplasm, respectively, and related complexes exist in human cells. Here we report on the characterization of the AtRrp41p, an Arabidopsis thaliana homolog of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae exosome subunit Rrp41p (Ski6p). Purified recombinant AtRrp41p displays a processive phosphorolytic exonuclease activity and requires a single-stranded poly(A) tail on a substrate RNA as a "loading pad." The expression of the Arabidopsis RRP41 cDNA in yeast rescues the 5.8 S rRNA processing and 3'-->5' mRNA degradation defects of the yeast ski6-100 mutant. However, neither of these defects can explain the conditional lethal phenotype of the ski6-100 strain. Importantly, AtRrp41p shares additional function(s) with the yeast Rrp41p which are essential for cell viability because it also rescues the rrp41 (ski6) null mutant. AtRrp41p is found predominantly in a high molecular mass complex in Arabidopsis and in yeast cells, and it interacts in vitro with the yeast Rrp44p and Rrp4p exosome subunits, suggesting that it can participate in evolutionarily conserved interactions that could be essential for the integrity of the exosome complex.