Functional analysis of a C. elegans trans-splice acceptor.

The rol-6 gene is trans-spliced to the 22 nt leader, SL1, 173 nt downstream of the transcription start. We have analyzed splicing in transformants carrying extrachromosomal arrays of rol-6 with mutations in the trans-splice acceptor site. This site is a close match to the consensus, UUUCAG, that is highly conserved in both trans-splice and intron acceptor sites in C. elegans. When the trans-splice site was inactivated by mutating the perfectly-conserved AG, trans-splicing still occurred, but at a cryptic site 20 nt upstream. We tested the frequency with which splicing switched from the normal site to the cryptic site when the pyrimidines at this site were changed to A's. Since most C. elegans 3' splice sites lack an obvious polypyrimidine tract, we hypothesized that these four pyrimidines might play this role, and indeed mutation of these bases caused splicing to switch to the cryptic site. We also demonstrated that a major reason the downstream site is normally favored is because it occurs at a boundary between A+U rich and non-A+U rich RNA. When the RNA between the two splice sites was made less A+U rich, splicing occurred preferentially at the upstream site.