Abundant pseudogenes for small nuclear RNAs are dispersed in the human genome

Abstract

We have cloned and partially characterized 24 loci from the human genome which are complementary to U1, U2, or U3, the three major species of small nuclear RNA (snRNA) in HeLa cells. When compared to the known U1 (human) and U2 (rat) snRNA sequences, the DNA sequences we report here for the complementary regions from two of the clones, U1.11 and U2.7, reveal the presence of truncated and divergent gene copies. Furthermore, most if not all of the 24 cloned loci contain gene copies that are significantly divergent from the homologous HeLa snRNA species because DNA from every recombinant phage except U1.7 and U1.15 proved unable to form snRNA.DNA hybrids which protect full-length HeLa snRNA from ild digestion with ribonuclease T1. Hence, we refer to these loci as snRNA pseudogenes. In both clones U1.11 and U2.7, an element of the dominant middle repetitive DNA sequence family in the human genome, the Alu family, is located upstream from the snRNA pseudogene and in the same orientation. Alu elements in the same location and orientation relative to bona fide genes have previously been found in the human beta-globin gene cluster [Duncan, C. H., Biro, P. A., Choudary, P. V., Elder, J. T., Wang, R. C., Forget, G. B., deRiel, J. K. & Weissman, S. M. (1979) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 76, 5095-5099]. We discuss the significance of these findings in relation to the nature of snRNA multigene families and other reported examples of pseudogenes.