Maturation of mammalian H/ACA box snoRNAs: PAPD5-dependent adenylation and PARN-dependent trimming

  1. Elmar Wahle1,9
  1. 1Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 06099 Halle, Germany
  2. 2Section for Molecular Cell Biology, Department of Medicine, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 06097 Halle, Germany
  3. 3Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, 14195 Berlin, Germany
  4. 4Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and UPF, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
  5. 5Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, 1649-028 Lisboa, Portugal
    1. 6 These authors contributed equally to this work.

    • 7 Present address: Institute of Biology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 06099 Halle, Germany.

    • 8 Present address: Centre for Genomic Regulation, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.

    Abstract

    Small nucleolar and small Cajal body RNAs (snoRNAs and scaRNAs) of the H/ACA box and C/D box type are generated by exonucleolytic shortening of longer precursors. Removal of the last few nucleotides at the 3′ end is known to be a distinct step. We report that, in human cells, knock-down of the poly(A) specific ribonuclease (PARN), previously implicated only in mRNA metabolism, causes the accumulation of oligoadenylated processing intermediates of H/ACA box but not C/D box RNAs. In agreement with a role of PARN in snoRNA and scaRNA processing, the enzyme is concentrated in nucleoli and Cajal bodies. Oligo(A) tails are attached to a short stub of intron sequence remaining beyond the mature 3′ end of the snoRNAs. The noncanonical poly(A) polymerase PAPD5 is responsible for addition of the oligo(A) tails. We suggest that deadenylation is coupled to clean 3′ end trimming, which might serve to enhance snoRNA stability.

    Keywords

    Footnotes

    • Received January 5, 2012.
    • Accepted February 14, 2012.
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