PPR-SMR protein SOT1 has RNA endonuclease activity.

Numerous attempts have been made to identify and engineer sequence-specific RNA endonucleases, as these would allow for efficient RNA manipulation. However, no natural RNA endonuclease that recognizes RNA in a sequence-specific manner has been described to date. Here, we report that SUPPRESSOR OF THYLAKOID FORMATION 1 (SOT1), an Arabidopsis pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) protein with a small MutS-related (SMR) domain, has RNA endonuclease activity. We show that the SMR moiety of SOT1 performs the endonucleolytic maturation of 23S and 4.5S rRNA through the PPR domain, specifically recognizing a 13-nucleotide RNA sequence in the 5' end of the chloroplast 23S-4.5S rRNA precursor. In addition, we successfully engineered the SOT1 protein with altered PPR motifs to recognize and cleave a predicted RNA substrate. Our findings point to SOT1 as an exciting tool for RNA manipulation.

Citation

Wen Zhou, Qingtao Lu, Qingwei Li, Lei Wang, Shunhua Ding, Aihong Zhang, Xiaogang Wen, Lixin Zhang, Congming Lu. PPR-SMR protein SOT1 has RNA endonuclease activity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2017 Feb 21;114(8):E1554-E1563

PMID: 28167782

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