A Computational Screen for Methylation Guide snoRNAs in Yeast

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 1999-02, Vol.283 (5405), p.1168-1171
• Main Authors: Lowe, Todd M., Eddy, Sean R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Base Pairing; Biological and medical sciences; Brewer's yeast; Cell Nucleolus - metabolism; Classical genetics, quantitative genetics, hybrids; Coding; Computational Linguistics; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Genetic engineering; Genetic screening; Genetics of eukaryotes. Biological and molecular evolution; Genomes; Genomics; Methylation; Models, Genetic; Models, Statistical; Nucleic acids; Nucleotides; Probabilistic modeling; Ribonucleic acid; Ribose - metabolism; Ribosomal RNA; RNA; RNA, Fungal - analysis; RNA, Fungal - chemistry; RNA, Fungal - genetics; RNA, Fungal - metabolism; RNA, Ribosomal - chemistry; RNA, Ribosomal - genetics; RNA, Ribosomal - metabolism; RNA, Small Nuclear - analysis; RNA, Small Nuclear - chemistry; RNA, Small Nuclear - genetics; Saccharomyces cerevisiae; Saccharomyces cerevisiae - genetics; Small nucleolar RNA; Software; Thallophyta, bryophyta; Vegetals; Yeast; Yeasts
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5405.1168

Small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) are required for ribose 2′-O-methylation of eukaryotic ribosomal RNA. Many of the genes for this snoRNA family have remained unidentified in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, despite the availability of a complete genome sequence. Probabilistic modeling methods akin to those used in speech recognition and computational linguistics were used to computationally screen the yeast genome and identify 22 methylation guide snoRNAs, snR50 to snR71. Gene disruptions and other experimental characterization confirmed their methylation guide function. In total, 51 of the 55 ribose methylated sites in yeast ribosomal RNA were assigned to 41 different guide snoRNAs.