Scientists at IMBA are passionate about discovery and advancing our understanding of biology. They are recognized leaders in their fields, regularly publishing in the top research journals. Contributions from IMBA research groups are of interest to everyone – including scientists, clinicians, and the public. The Research Highlights below summarize some of the most significant discoveries made by IMBA scientists.
HSPC117 is the essential subunit of a human tRNA splicing ligase complex
Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) are absolutely necessary to translate the genetic code into proteins required for life. In humans, some tRNAs are synthesized in an immature form containing an intervening sequence that has to be removed by sequential cleavage and joining reactions. Although the factors carrying out the cleavage reactions are already known for several years, the so-called tRNA ligase joining the tRNA exon pieces together remained unknown. We applied chromatographic techniques to purify proteins required for the joining reaction from the complex cell extracts able to process tRNA precursors into their mature form. After several rounds of purification we arrived at a mixture of ca. 100 proteins which we could examine in greater detail. One of those, called HSPC117, proved to be the essential factor for the described joining reaction as we were able to demonstrate by affinity purification and RNAi-mediated inactivation experiments.