In mammals, Up-frameshift proteins (UPFs) form a surveillance complex that interacts with the exon junction complex (EJC) to elicit nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD). UPF3b is the component of the surveillance complex that bridges the interaction with the EJC. Here, we report the 3.4 A resolution crystal structure of a minimal UPF3b-EJC assembly, consisting of the interacting domains of five p...

In addition to sculpting eukaryotic transcripts by removing introns, pre-mRNA splicing greatly impacts protein composition of the emerging mRNP. The exon junction complex (EJC), deposited upstream of exon-exon junctions after splicing, is a major constituent of spliced mRNPs. Here, we report comprehensive analysis of the endogenous human EJC protein and RNA interactomes. We confirm that the maj...

*A.C. Fernandes and V. Uytterhoeven contributed equally to this paper. Correspondence to Patrik Verstreken: [email protected] Abbreviations used in this paper: ANOVA, analysis of variance; CSP, cysteine string protein; Dor, Deep orange; EJC, excitatory junctional current; EMS, ethyl methanesulfonate; ERG, electroretinogram; FT, fluorescent timer; HOPS, homotypic fusion and vacuo...

Although the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) plays a major role in mediating the peripheral stress response, due consideration is not usually given to the effects of prolonged stress on the SNS. The present study examined changes in neurotransmission in the SNS after exposure of mice (BALB/c) to stressful housing conditions. Focal extracellular recording of excitatory junction currents (EJCs) ...

Frontotemporal dementia with parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17 (FTDP-17) is caused by mutations in the gene encoding the microtubule-associated protein, tau. Some FTDP-17 mutations affect exon 10 splicing. To correct aberrant exon 10 splicing while retaining endogenous transcriptional control, we evaluated the feasibility of using spliceosome-mediated RNA trans-splicing (SMaRT) to reprogram ...

Interindividual variation in prostate cancer (PCa) susceptibility may be modulated in part through genetic polymorphisms in the DNA repair genes, especially the genes involved in the base excision repair and nucleotide excision repair pathway. Two of the common single-nucleotide polymorphisms X-ray repair cross-complementing group 1 (XRCC1) and Xeroderma pigmentosum group D (XPD) genes in PCa, ...

Abnormal alternative splicing of tau exon 10 results in imbalance of 3R-tau and 4R-tau expression, which is sufficient to cause neurofibrillary degeneration. Splicing factor SC35, a member of the superfamily of the serine/arginine-rich (SR) proteins, promotes tau exon 10 inclusion. The molecular mechanism by which SC35 participates in tau exon 10 splicing remains elusive. In the present study, ...