7SL RNA in vertebrate red blood cells
- 1Department of Embryology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA
- 2Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA
- Corresponding author: gall{at}carnegiescience.edu
Abstract
We report that 7SL, the RNA component of the signal recognition particle (SRP), is an abundant noncoding RNA (ncRNA) in mature red blood cells (RBCs) of human, mouse, and the frog Xenopus. 7SL RNA in RBCs is not associated with the canonical proteins of the SRP. Instead, it coimmunoprecipitates from a lysate of RBCs with a number of membrane-binding proteins. Human and mouse RBCs also contain a previously undescribed 68 nt RNA, sRN7SL, derived from the “S domain” of 7SL RNA. We discuss the possibility that 7SL RNA is selectively protected from nucleases by association with the RBC membrane. Because 7SL is not associated with the canonical proteins of the SRP, it could represent a nonfunctional remnant of the protein synthetic machinery. Alternatively, it could play a new, as yet undefined role in RBC metabolism.
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Footnotes
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Article is online at http://www.rnajournal.org/cgi/doi/10.1261/rna.065474.117.
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Freely available online through the RNA Open Access option.
- Received December 27, 2017.
- Accepted April 19, 2018.
This article, published in RNA, is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution 4.0 International), as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
