Widespread RNA 3′-end oligouridylation in mammals

Yun S. Choi; Weronika Patena; Andrew D. Leavitt; Michael T. McManus

doi:10.1261/rna.029306.111

Widespread RNA 3′-end oligouridylation in mammals

¹Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143, USA
²Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Diabetes Center, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143, USA
³Department of Laboratory Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143, USA

↵4 Present address: Department of Plant Biology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

Abstract

Nontemplated 3′-end oligouridylation of RNA occurs in many species, including humans. Unlike the familiar phenomenon of polyadenylation, nontemplated addition of uridines to RNA is poorly characterized in higher eukaryotes. Recent studies have reported nontemplated 3′-end oligouridylation of small RNAs and mRNAs. Oligouridylation is involved in many aspects of microRNA biology from biogenesis to turnover of the mature species, and it may also mark long mRNAs for degradation by promoting decapping of the protective 5′-cap structure. To determine the prevalence of oligouridylation in higher eukaryotes, we used next-generation sequencing technology to deeply examine the population of small RNAs in human cells. Our data revealed widespread nontemplated nucleotide addition to the 3′ ends of many classes of RNA, with short stretches of uridine being the most frequently added nucleotide.

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Footnotes

↵5 Corresponding author.

E-mail michael.mcmanus{at}ucsf.edu.
Article published online ahead of print. Article and publication date are at http://www.rnajournal.org/cgi/doi/10.1261/rna.029306.111.