In vitro Generation of a Circular Exon from a Linear Pre-mRNA Transcript

Recent findings have firmly established the existence of circular exons in vivo. We were interested in the possible splicing mechanism by which these unusual mRNA molecules could be created in vitro, though no biological relevance has been attached to their existence as yet. In this report we demonstrate that a modified synthetic linear yeast ACT1 transcript whose sequence begins with the 3'-part of its original intron, is continued by 247 nt of exon sequence and terminates with the 5'-part of its intron will generate a circular exon when introduced to standard in vitro splicing reactions in whole cell splice extracts from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The formation of a circular exon was found to be independent of specific circular or secondary structures of the pre-mRNA transcript. We hypothesize that circular exons which are found in vivo may be generated from pre-mRNAs which derive from rare events of transcription initiation within an intron.