Spliceosomal complex assembly

Abstract: Abundance of pseudo splice sites in introns can potentially give rise to innumerable pseudoexons, outnumbering the real ones Nonetheless, these are efficiently ignored by the splicing machinery, a process yet to be understood completely Although numerous 5′ splice site-like sequences functioning as splicing silencers have been found to be enriched in predicted human pseudoexons, the lack of active pseudoexons pose a fundamental challenge to how these U1snRNP-binding sites function in splicing inhibition Here, we address this issue by focusing on a previously described pathological ATM pseudoexon whose inhibition is mediated by U1snRNP binding at intronic splicing processing element (ISPE), composed of a consensus donor splice site Spliceosomal complex assembly demonstrates inefficient A complex formation when ISPE is intact, implying U1snRNP-mediated unproductive U2snRNP recruitment Furthermore, interaction of SF2/ASF with its motif seems to be dependent on RNA structure and U1snRNP interaction Our results suggest a complex combinatorial interplay of RNA structure and trans-acting factors in determining the splicing outcome and contribute to understanding the intronic splicing code for the ATM pseudoexon