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Infection and Immunity, November 1999, p. 6157-6160, Vol. 67, No. 11
Thoracic Diseases Research Unit,
Received 29 March 1999/Returned for modification 17 June
1999/Accepted 10 August 1999
Pneumocystis carinii is an ascomycete phylogenetically
related to Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Little is known about
gene regulation in P. carinii. The removal of introns from
pre-mRNA requires spliceosomal recognition of the intron-exon boundary.
In S. pombe and higher eukaryotes, this boundary and a
branch site within the intron are conserved. We recently demonstrated
that P. carinii cdc2 cDNA can complement S. pombe containing conditional mutations of cdc2, an
essential gene involved in cell cycle regulation. We next tested whether P. carinii genomic cdc2 (with six
introns) could also complement S. pombe cdc2 mutants and
found genomic sequences incapable of this activity. Reverse
transcriptase PCR confirmed the inability of the S. pombe
cdc2 mutants to splice the P. carinii genomic cdc2. Analysis of 83 introns from 19 P. carinii
protein-encoding genes demonstrated that the sequence GTWWDW functions
as a donor consensus in P. carinii, whereas YAG serves as
an acceptor consensus. These sequences are similar in S. pombe; however, a branch site sequence was not found in the
P. carinii genes studied.
0019-9567/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Analysis of Pneumocystis carinii
Introns
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Thoracic
Diseases Research Unit, 696 Guggenheim Building, Mayo Clinic and
Foundation, Rochester, MN 55905. Phone: (507) 284-2301. Fax: (507)
284-4521. E-mail: thomas.charles{at}mayo.edu.
Infection and Immunity, November 1999, p. 6157-6160, Vol. 67, No. 11
0019-9567/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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