Minor introns are embedded molecular switches regulated by highly unstable U6atac snRNA

Ihab Younis, Kimberly Dittmar, Wei Wang, Shawn W. Foley, Michael G. Berg, Karen Y. Hu, Zhi Wei, Lili Wan, Gideon Dreyfuss

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

66 Scopus citations

Abstract

Eukaryotes have two types of spliceosomes, comprised of either major (U1, U2, U4, U5, U6) or minor (U11, U12, U4atac, U6atac; <1%) snRNPs. The high conservation of minor introns, typically one amidst many major introns in several hundred genes, despite their poor splicing, has been a long-standing enigma. Here, we discovered that the low abundance minor spliceosome's catalytic snRNP, U6atac, is strikingly unstable (t1/2<2 hr). We show that U6atac level depends on both RNA polymerases II and III and can be rapidly increased by cell stress-activated kinase p38MAPK, which stabilizes it, enhancing mRNA expression of hundreds of minor intron-containing genes that are otherwise suppressed by limiting U6atac. Furthermore, p38MAPK-dependent U6atac modulation can control minor intron-containing tumor suppressor PTEN expression and cytokine production. We propose that minor introns are embedded molecular switches regulated by U6atac abundance, providing a novel post-transcriptional gene expression mechanism and a rationale for the minor spliceosome's evolutionary conservation.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbere00780
JournaleLife
Volume2013
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 30 2013
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Immunology and Microbiology
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Neuroscience

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