Previous work from our lab suggests that a group of interdependent assembly factors (A 3 factors) is necessary to create early, stable preribosomes. Many of these proteins bind at or near internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2), but in their absence, ITS1 is not removed from rRNA, suggesting long-range communication between these two spacers. By comparing the nonessential assembly factors Nop12 and Pwp1, we show that misfolding of rRNA is sufficient to perturb early steps of biogenesis, but it is the lack of A 3 factors that results in turnover of early preribosomes. Deletion of NOP12 significantly inhibits 27SA 3 pre-rRNA processing, even though the A 3 factors are present in preribosomes. Furthermore, pre-rRNAs are stable, indicating that the block in processing is not sufficient to trigger turnover. This is in contrast to the absence of Pwp1, in which the A 3 factors are not present and pre-rRNAs are unstable. In vivo RNA structure probing revealed that the pre-rRNA processing defects are due to misfolding of 5.8S rRNA. In the absence of Nop12 and Pwp1, rRNA helix 5 is not stably formed. Interestingly, the absence of Nop12 results in the formation of an alternative yet unproductive helix 5 when cells are grown at low temperatures.
Ribosome assembly is a highly conserved and dynamic process driven by the cooperative transcription, folding, modification, and processing of rRNAs and stable binding of ribosomal proteins (r-proteins) (1, 2). In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, this process begins in the nucleolus with cotranscriptional assembly of early precursor particles. As transcription proceeds, the nascent pre-rRNA is cleaved, separating maturation of early 40S and 60S precursors. A series of endo-and exonucleolytic cleavages remove internal and external transcribed spacer sequences from prerRNAs, as the assembling ribosome moves from the nucleolus to the nucleoplasm and is eventually exported to the cytoplasm ( Fig. 1A and B).Assembly of yeast ribosomes requires ϳ180 trans-acting proteins termed assembly factors (AFs). The majority of these proteins are conserved across eukaryotes, are essential for cell growth, and are thought to function as scaffolding proteins, RNA chaperones, energy-consuming nucleoside triphosphatases (NTPases), nucleases, or posttranslational modifiers (3-5). Purification of ribosome assembly intermediates allowed the identification of most AFs, and initial characterizations have shown in which steps of pre-rRNA processing many of these factors function. However, to begin to understand the function of these proteins on a mechanistic level, one must address the following: the timing of association of these proteins with preribosomes; how they are recruited to preribosomes; their requirement for the stable binding of other proteins; and their role in folding rRNA.Numerous studies have shown that subsets of AFs can be isolated as subcomplexes (6-23). Proteins within a subcomplex are often required for the same steps of pre-rRNA processing, suggesting that they function together during ribosome bi...