On the Possibility of an Early Evolutionary Origin for the Spliced Leader Trans-Splicing

Trans -splicing is a process by which 5′- and 3′-ends of two pre-RNA molecules transcribed from different sites of the genome can be joined together to form a single RNA molecule. The spliced leader (SL) trans -splicing is mediated by the spliceosome and it allows the replacement of 5′-end of pre-mR...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of molecular evolution 2017-08, Vol.85 (1-2), p.37-45
Main Authors: Krchňáková, Zuzana, Krajčovič, Juraj, Vesteg, Matej
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analogies
Animal Genetics and Genomics
Binding sites
Biological evolution
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Cell Biology
Conserved sequence
Eukaryota - genetics
Eukaryota - metabolism
Eukaryotes
Evolution, Molecular
Evolutionary Biology
Genomes
Life Sciences
Microbiology
mRNA
Original Article
Phylogeny
Plant Genetics and Genomics
Plant Sciences
Ribonucleic acid
RNA
RNA Precursors - metabolism
RNA processing
RNA, Spliced Leader - genetics
RNA, Spliced Leader - metabolism
Splicing
Structure-function relationships
Trans-Splicing
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Summary:Trans -splicing is a process by which 5′- and 3′-ends of two pre-RNA molecules transcribed from different sites of the genome can be joined together to form a single RNA molecule. The spliced leader (SL) trans -splicing is mediated by the spliceosome and it allows the replacement of 5′-end of pre-mRNA by 5′(SL)-end of SL-RNA. This form of splicing has been observed in many phylogenetically unrelated eukaryotes. Either the SL trans -splicing (SLTS) originated in the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) (or even earlier) and it was lost in most eukaryotic lineages, or this mechanism of RNA processing evolved several times independently in various unrelated eukaryotic taxa. The bioinformatic comparisons of SL-RNAs from various eukaryotic taxonomic groups have revealed the similarities of secondary structures of most SL-RNAs and a relative conservation of their splice sites (SSs) and Sm-binding sites (SmBSs). We propose that such structural and functional similarities of SL-RNAs are unlikely to have evolved repeatedly many times. Hence, we favor the scenario of an early evolutionary origin for the SLTS and multiple losses of SL-RNAs in various eukaryotic lineages.
ISSN:0022-2844
1432-1432
DOI:10.1007/s00239-017-9803-y