Abstract
The multiprotein exon junction complex (EJC) is assembled on mRNAs as a consequence of splicing. EJC core components maintain a stable grip on mRNAs even as the overall EJC protein composition evolves while mRNAs travel to the cytoplasm. Here we show that recombinant EJC subunits MLN51, MAGOH and Y14, together with the DEAD-box protein eIF4AIII bound to ATP, are necessary and sufficient to form a highly stable complex on single-stranded RNA. Cross-linking and RNase protection studies indicate that this recombinant complex recapitulates the EJC core. The stable association of the recombinant EJC core with RNA is maintained by inhibition of eIF4AIII ATPase activity by MAGOH-Y14. We elucidate the modalities of EJC binding to RNA and provide the first example of how cellular machineries may use RNA helicases to clamp several proteins onto RNA in stable and sequence-independent manners.
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Acknowledgements
We thank T. Tange, M.J. Moore, P. Linder and S. Degot for plasmids and J. Stévenin for antibodies to 9G8. We are grateful to A. Dziembowski for technical assistance. We acknowledge our laboratory and A. Expert-Bezancon for helpful advice and discussions and M. Jurica, D. Libri and A. Nott for carefully reading the manuscript. This work was supported in part by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), La Ligue Contre le Cancer and Human Frontier Science Program (B.S.) and the Research Ministry (grant ACI–Jeunes chercheurs to H.L.H.).
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Supplementary Fig. 1
Stability of the complex in presence of the eIF4AIII mutant K92A (PDF 281 kb)
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Ballut, L., Marchadier, B., Baguet, A. et al. The exon junction core complex is locked onto RNA by inhibition of eIF4AIII ATPase activity. Nat Struct Mol Biol 12, 861–869 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb990
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb990
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