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Background  Pre-mRNA splicing involves the stepwise assembly of a pre-catalytic spliceosome, followed by its catalytic activation, splicing catalysis and disassembly. Formation of the pre-catalytic spliceosomal B complex involves the incorporation of the U4/U6.U5 tri-snRNP and of a group of non-snRNP B-specific proteins. While in  Saccharomyces cerevisiae  the Prp38 and Snu23 proteins are recruited as components of the tri-snRNP, metazoan orthologs of Prp38 and Snu23 associate independently of the tri-snRNP as members of the B-specific proteins. The human spliceosome contains about 80 proteins that lack obvious orthologs in yeast, including most of the B-specific proteins apart from Prp38 and Snu23. Conversely, the tri-snRNP protein Spp381 is one of only five  S. cerevisiae  splicing factors without a known human ortholog.    Results  Using InParanoid, a state-of-the-art method for ortholog inference between pairs of species, and systematic BLAST searches we identified the human B-specific protein MFAP1 as a putative ortholog of the  S. cerevisiae  tri-snRNP protein Spp381. Bioinformatics revealed that MFAP1 and Spp381 share characteristic structural features, including intrinsic disorder, an elongated shape, solvent exposure of most residues and a trend to adopt α-helical structures. In vitro binding studies showed that human MFAP1 and yeast Spp381 bind their respective Prp38 proteins via equivalent interfaces and that they cross-interact with the Prp38 proteins of the respective other species. Furthermore, MFAP1 and Spp381 both form higher-order complexes that additionally include Snu23, suggesting that they are parts of equivalent spliceosomal sub-complexes. Finally, similar to yeast Spp381, human MFAP1 partially rescued a growth defect of the temperature-sensitive mutant yeast strain  prp38-1 .    Conclusions  Human B-specific protein MFAP1 structurally and functionally resembles the yeast tri-snRNP-specific protein Spp381 and thus qualifies as its so far missing ortholog. Our study indicates that the yeast Snu23-Prp38-Spp381 triple complex was evolutionarily reprogrammed from a tri-snRNP-specific module in yeast to the B-specific Snu23-Prp38-MFAP1 module in metazoa, affording higher flexibility in spliceosome assembly and thus, presumably, in splicing regulation.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12862-017-0923-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Human MFAP1 is a cryptic ortholog of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Spp381 splicing factor