Summary
The 5′-proximal trp leader RNA segment (about 5S) decays at 2 to 3 times slower rates than the distal trp mRNA sequence. This has been demonstrated by employing the deletion mutants which lack a large portion of the structural genes but retain the promoter-proximal region of the trp operon. Relative stability of the leader RNA is not merely due to the presence of an untranslatable region in the segment; the internal untranslatable segment of trp mRNA downstream from the nonsense alteration site of a double mutant trpAD28·trpE9758 decays as fast as the normal trp mRNA sequence. These results suggest that the trp mRNA is endonucleolytically cleaved to yield the small 5′-proximal leader RNA segment before the distal mRNA decays and that the leader RNA sequence is not subject to usual mode of mRNA decay in the 5′ to 3′ direction.
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Communicated by T. Yura
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Kano, Y., Imamoto, F. Evidence for endonucleolytic cleavage at the 5′-proximal segment of the trp messenger RNA in Escherichia coli . Molec. Gen. Genet. 172, 25–30 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00276211
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00276211