Stem-loop structure preference for site-specific RNA editing by APOBEC3A and APOBEC3G
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Molecular Biology
- Keywords
- APOBEC3A, RNA Editing, RNA secondary structure, cytidine deaminsase, APOBEC3G
- Copyright
- © 2017 Sharma et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2017. Stem-loop structure preference for site-specific RNA editing by APOBEC3A and APOBEC3G. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3115v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3115v1
Abstract
APOBEC3A and APOBEC3G cytidine deaminases inhibit viruses and endogenous retrotransposons. We recently demonstrated the novel cellular C-to-U RNA editing function of APOBEC3A and APOBEC3G. Both enzymes deaminate single-stranded DNAs at multiple TC or CC nucleotide sequences, but edit only a select set of RNAs, often at a single TC or CC nucleotide sequence. To examine the specific site preference for APOBEC3A and -3G-mediated RNA editing, we performed mutagenesis studies of the endogenous cellular RNA substrates of both proteins. We demonstrate that both enzymes prefer RNA substrates that have a predicted stem-loop with the reactive C at the 3ʹ-end of the loop. The size of the loop, the nucleotides immediately 5ʹ to the target cytosine and stability of the stem have a major impact on the level of RNA editing. Our findings show that both sequence and secondary structure are preferred for RNA editing by APOBEC3A and -3G, and suggest an explanation for substrate and site-specificity of RNA editing by APOBEC3A and -3G enzymes.
Author Comment
This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints.