J. Cheng et al., INTRONS ARE CIS EFFECTORS OF THE NONSENSE-CODON-MEDIATED REDUCTION INNUCLEAR MESSENGER-RNA ABUNDANCE, Molecular and cellular biology, 14(9), 1994, pp. 6317-6325
The translation of human triosephosphate isomerase (TPI) mRNA normally
terminates at codon 249 within exon 7, the final exon. Frameshift and
nonsense mutations of the type that cause translation to terminate pr
ematurely at or upstream of codon 189 within exon 6 reduce the level o
f nuclear TPI mRNA to 20 to 30% of normal by a mechanism that is not a
function of the distance of the nonsense codon from either the transl
ation initiation or termination codon. In contrast, frameshift and non
sense mutations of another type that cause translation to terminate pr
ematurely at or downstream of codon 208, also within exon 6, have no e
ffect on the level of nuclear TPI mRNA. In this work, quantitations of
RNA that derived from TPI alleles in which nonsense codons had been g
enerated between codons 189 and 208 revealed that the boundary between
the two types of nonsense codons resides between codons 192 and 195.
The analysis of TPI gene insertions and deletions indicated that the p
ositional feature differentiating the two types of nonsense codons is
the distance of the nonsense codon upstream of intron 6. For example,
the movement of intron 6 to a position downstream of its normal locati
on resulted in a concomitant downstream movement of the boundary betwe
en the two types of nonsense codons. The analysis of intron 6 mutation
s indicated that the intron 6 effect is stipulated by the 88 nucleotid
es residing between the 5' and 3' splice sites. Since the deletion of
intron 6 resulted in only partial abrogation of the nonsense codon-med
iated reduction in the level of TPI mRNA, other sequences within TPI p
re-mRNA must function in the effect. One of these sequences may be int
ron 2, since the deletion of intron 2 also resulted in partial abrogat
ion of the effect. In experiments that switched introns 2 and 6, the r
eplacement of intron 6 with intron 2 was of no consequence to the effe
ct of a nonsense codon within either exon 1 or exon 6. In contrast, th
e replacement of intron 2 with intron 6 was inconsequential to the eff
ect of a nonsense codon in exon 6 but resulted in partial abrogation o
f a nonsense codon in exon 1.