In Vitro System for Coupling RNAP II Transcription to Primary microRNA Processing and a Three-Way System for RNAP II Transcription/Splicing/microRNA Processing.

In the genome, primary microRNAs (pri-miRNAs) are encoded either as independent transcriptional units with their own promoters (intergenic miRNAs) or within the introns of other genes (intronic miRNAs). Here, we report two methods, one that we established for coupled RNAP II transcription and pri-miRNA processing and the other that is a three-way system for RNAP II transcription, pri-miRNA processing, and pre-mRNA splicing. In these systems, CMV-DNA constructs encoding the processing substrates are incubated in HeLa cell nuclear extracts in the presence of 32P-UTP to generate the nascent RNAP II transcripts, which are processed efficiently by the endogenous RNA processing machineries in nuclear extracts.