Widespread occurrence of non-canonical transcription termination by human RNA polymerase III
Open Access
- 17 March 2011
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Nucleic Acids Research
- Vol. 39 (13), 5499-5512
- https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkr074
Abstract
Human RNA polymerase (Pol) III-transcribed genes are thought to share a simple termination signal constituted by four or more consecutive thymidine residues in the coding DNA strand, just downstream of the RNA 3′-end sequence. We found that a large set of human tRNA genes (tDNAs) do not display any T ≥4 stretch within 50 bp of 3′-flanking region. In vitro analysis of tDNAs with a distanced T ≥4 revealed the existence of non-canonical terminators resembling degenerate T ≥5 elements, which ensure significant termination but at the same time allow for the production of Pol III read-through pre-tRNAs with unusually long 3′ trailers. A panel of such non-canonical signals was found to direct transcription termination of unusual Pol III-synthesized viral pre-miRNA transcripts in gammaherpesvirus 68-infected cells. Genome-wide location analysis revealed that human Pol III tends to trespass into the 3′-flanking regions of tDNAs, as expected from extensive terminator read-through. The widespread occurrence of partial termination suggests that the Pol III primary transcriptome in mammals is unexpectedly enriched in 3′-trailer sequences with the potential to contribute novel functional ncRNAs.Keywords
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