Project description:This project aims to identify novel RNA binding proteins in the baker's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Since interactions between RNAs and proteins may be transient, yeast cells were crosslinked with UV light at 254 nm which promotes the covalent link between proteins and RNAs. After this, polyadenylated mRNAs were purified via oligo(dT) coupled to magentic beads under stringet conditions. Finally, samples were subjected to mass spectrometry analysis. To rule out the possibility of RNA-independent binding we also analysed other samples: i) samples digested with RNase one; ii) samples where we performed competition assays with polyadenylic acid.
Project description:To investigate the possible range of additional RNase P substrates in vivo a strand-specific, high-density microarray was used to analyze what RNA accumulates with a mutation in the catalytic RNA subunit of nuclear RNase P in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A wide variety of noncoding RNAs were shown to accumulate, suggesting nuclear RNase P participates in the turnover of normally unstable nuclear RNAs. In some cases, the accumulated noncoding RNAs were shown to be antisense to transcripts that commensurately decreased in abundance. Pre-mRNAs containing introns also accumulated broadly, consistent with either compromised splicing or failure to efficiently turnover pre-mRNAs that do not enter the splicing pathway. Taken together with the high complexity of the nuclear RNase P holoenzyme and its relatively non-specific capacity to bind and cleave mixed sequence RNAs, these data suggest nuclear RNase P facilitates turnover of nuclear RNAs in addition to its role in pre-tRNA biogenesis.
