Nonsense mutations inhibit splicing of MVM RNA in cis when they interrupt the reading frame of either exon of the final spliced product

Abstract

mRNAs R1 and R2 of the autonomous parvovirus minute virus of mice (MVM), which encode the viral nonstructural proteins NS1 and NS2, respectively, are processed in an ordered splicing pathway in which R2 is generated from mature spliced R1. Introduction of translation termination signals into these genes alters the processing of these RNAs; there is a significant (up to fourfold) increase in the accumulated steady-state levels of R1 relative to R2, when compared with wild-type levels, although the total accumulated levels of R1 plus R2 remain the same. The increase in accumulated R1 relative to R2 in mutant infected or transfected murine cells is independent of RNA stability and transport and decreases, in a polar manner, with the distance of the inserted termination signal from the shared initiation codon for NS1 and NS2 at nucleotide 260. The increased ratio of R1 to R2 is a consequence of the artificially introduced translation termination signals acting in cis rather than in the absence of a functional viral gene product. These mutations have an effect when they interrupt previously open reading frames in either exon of the spliced product R2. Nonsense mutations that are located in the second exon of R2 inhibit splicing of R1 to R2 only when they interrupt an open reading frame (ORF) that has the potential, after normal splicing, to be joined in-frame with the initiating AUG. These results suggest that nonsense mutations inhibit splicing of R1 to R2 by influencing the mechanism by which exons are defined in murine cells.