MBE Advance Access originally published online on June 19, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2008 25(9):1923-1930; doi:10.1093/molbev/msn140
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Research Articles |
Arthropod 7SK RNA
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* Institute for Theoretical Chemistry, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Department of Combinatorics and Geometry, CAS–MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology (PICB), Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Shanghai, China
Max Planck Insitute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Bioinformatics Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
|| Interdisciplinary Center for Bioinformatics, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
¶ Fraunhofer Institut für Zelltherapie und Immunologie—IZI Perlickstrasse 1, Leipzig, Germany
# Santa Fe Institute
** Institut für Genetik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany
E-mail: agruber{at}tbi.univie.ac.at.
Accepted for publication June 16, 2008.
The 7SK small nuclear RNA (snRNA) is a key player in the regulation of polymerase (pol) II transcription. The 7SK RNA was long believed to be specific to vertebrates where it is highly conserved. Homologs in basal deuterostomes and a few lophotrochozoan species were only recently reported. On longer timescales, 7SK evolves rapidly with only few conserved sequence and structure motifs. Previous attempts to identify the Drosophila homolog thus have remained unsuccessful despite considerable efforts. Here we report on the discovery of arthropod 7SK RNAs using a novel search strategy based on pol III promoters, as well as the subsequent verification of its expression. Our results demonstrate that a 7SK snRNA featuring 2 highly structured conserved domains was present already in the bilaterian ancestor.
Key Words: 7SK snRNA • homology search • noncoding RNA
Franz Lang, Associate Editor