Open AccessAnalysis of Pneumocystis carinii Introns
Author(s) -
Charles F. Thomas,
Edward B. Leof,
Andrew H. Limper
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
infection and immunity
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.508
H-Index - 220
eISSN - 1070-6313
pISSN - 0019-9567
DOI - 10.1128/iai.67.11.6157-6160.1999
Subject(s) - pneumocystis carinii , biology , intron , schizosaccharomyces pombe , genetics , gene , exon , schizosaccharomyces , genomic dna , mutant , virology , pneumocystis jirovecii , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv)
Pneumocystis carinii is an ascomycete phylogenetically related toSchizosaccharomyces pombe . Little is known about gene regulation inP. carinii . The removal of introns from pre-mRNA requires spliceosomal recognition of the intron-exon boundary. InS. pombe and higher eukaryotes, this boundary and a branch site within the intron are conserved. We recently demonstrated thatP. carinii cdc2 cDNA can complementS. pombe containing conditional mutations ofcdc2 , an essential gene involved in cell cycle regulation. We next tested whetherP. carinii genomiccdc2 (with six introns) could also complementS. pombe cdc2 mutants and found genomic sequences incapable of this activity. Reverse transcriptase PCR confirmed the inability of theS. pombe cdc2 mutants to splice theP. carinii genomiccdc2 . Analysis of 83 introns from 19P. carinii protein-encoding genes demonstrated that the sequence GTWWDW functions as a donor consensus inP. carinii , whereas YAG serves as an acceptor consensus. These sequences are similar inS. pombe ; however, a branch site sequence was not found in theP. carinii genes studied.
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