RNA splicing in Neurospora mitochondria: nuclear mutants defective in both splicing and 3' end synthesis of the large rRNA.

We have identified nuclear mutants of Neurospora that are defective in splicing the mitochondrial large rRNA and that accumulate unspliced pre-rRNA (35S RNA). In cyt-4 mutants, the unspliced pre-rRNA contains short 3' end extensions (110 nucleotides) that are not present in pre-rRNAs from the other mutants. This and other characteristics suggest that the cyt-4 mutants may be primarily defective in 3' end synthesis and the RNA splicing defect occurs secondarily as a result of impaired RNA folding. The cyt-4 mutants also accumulate a "short" intron RNA and small exon RNAs that may reflect aberrant RNA cleavages. The 5' end of the short intron is about 285 nucleotides downstream from the 5' splice site at or near the base of the "central hairpin", a putative intermediate in folding of the pre-rRNA. Furthermore, the aberrant cleavage sites are immediately after a six nucleotide sequence (GAUAAU) homologous to the final splice junction (GAU/AAC).