期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2017
卷号：114
期号：8
页码：E1554-E1563
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1612460114
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Numerous attempts have been made to identify and engineer sequence-specific RNA endonucleases, as these would allow for efficient RNA manipulation. However, no natural RNA endonuclease that recognizes RNA in a sequence-specific manner has been described to date. Here, we report that SUPPRESSOR OF THYLAKOID FORMATION 1 (SOT1), an Arabidopsis pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) protein with a small MutS-related (SMR) domain, has RNA endonuclease activity. We show that the SMR moiety of SOT1 performs the endonucleolytic maturation of 23S and 4.5S rRNA through the PPR domain, specifically recognizing a 13-nucleotide RNA sequence in the 5′ end of the chloroplast 23S–4.5S rRNA precursor. In addition, we successfully engineered the SOT1 protein with altered PPR motifs to recognize and cleave a predicted RNA substrate. Our findings point to SOT1 as an exciting tool for RNA manipulation.
关键词：photosynthesis ; PPR-SMR protein ; RNA endonuclease ; rRNA biogenesis
