Protein kinases comprise a fundamental class of cell function regulators that modify proteins by transferring phosphate groups from a nucleoside triphosphate such as ATP to specific amino acid residues on target proteins, altering protein conformation, function, and activity. As such, protein kinases are major regulators of many biological processes, including gene expression, which consists of the transfer of hereditary information in two major processing steps, transcription of DNA into a complementary precursor RNA transcript (pre-mRNA) and its subsequent translated into protein by the ribosome, where it can then go on to perform various processes in the cell. One particular family of protein kinases, otherwise known as serine/arginine protein-specific protein kinases (SRPKs), is conserved throughout eukaryotes and has been shown to be important in regulating gene expression, yet their roles in the gene expression pathway have yet to be elucidated. SRPK are known to phosphorylate serine/arginine (SR) splicing factor proteins, which are involved in mRNA splice site recognition and recruitment of splicing machinery. Members of the LAMMER kinase subfamily of SRPKs have also been shown to be required for efficient pre-mRNA splicing and important for mediating cellular progression through the cell cycle.
To determine what other roles SRPKs play in mRNA processing, it is of use to study the homologous SRPK and LAMMER kinases in fission yeast, S. pombe, Dsk1 and Kic1, respectively. S. pombe provides a genetically valuable model for studying kinase function in RNA processing as both RNA processing machinery and SRPKs are conserved through higher eukaryotes. Using a novel green fluorescent protein tagging system based on properties of the MS2 bacteriophage genome, we are able to label specific mRNA transcripts of interest and visualize their locations in the cell using fluorescence microscopy. By visualizing the mRNA trafficking patterns of intron-containing and intronless mRNA transcripts, we show for the first time that deletions of the Dsk1 and Kic1 genes result in the nuclear retention of mRNA, such that Dsk1 and Kic1 are distinctly involved in mRNA export out of the nucleus.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CLAREMONT/oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:scripps_theses-1327 |
| Date | 20 January 2014 |
| Creators | Nurimba, Margaret |
| Publisher | Scholarship @ Claremont |
| Source Sets | Claremont Colleges |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Scripps Senior Theses |
| Rights | © 2013 Margaret Nurimba, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
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