Insertion of a 36-base-pair (bp) synthetic oligonucleotide comprising the sequence 5'-GTAGGT(19N)CTAAT (4N)AG-3' into several different positions within the coding region of the naturally intronless ura4 gene of Schizosaccharomyces pombe leads to an efficiently spliced gene producing a functional product. This suggests that the proper signals within an intron are sufficient to initiate and complete a splicing event independent of the location of the intron in the gene. Point mutations in the 5' junction (5'-GTAGGT-3') and in the putative branch sequence (5'-CTAAT-3') affect splicing efficiency significantly. A G-to-A transition at the first nucleotide at the 5' splice junction (5'-ATAGGT-3') abolishes the use of the authentic splice junction and leads to the increased use of an alternative splice site. No functional product is produced from this transcript. An A-to-G transition of the second A in the putative branch sequence (5'-CTAGT-3') lowers the splicing efficiency drastically, but still results in a functional gene product. Furthermore, extension of the 36-bp intron to introns more than 180 bp in size abolishes splicing, suggesting that the splicing apparatus might be restricted to very short introns. We discuss the possibility that S. pombe introns represent a simple type of eucaryotic intron.Intervening sequences appear to be spliced from nuclear pre-mRNA by a common mechanism. The precursor RNA of eucaryotic cells is assembled into a spliceosome (splicing complex) in which the actual splicing event takes place (5,7,15,23). Splicing can be viewed as a stepwise dynamic process which includes recognition of the intron, assembly of the spliceosome, and the actual splicing events (3, 13, 39). During this process, the precursor RNA is converted into an intermediate lariat structure by linking the first guanosine residue of the intron to an adenosine residue within the intron via a 2'-5' phosphodiester bond; the exon 1-intron junction is simultaneously cleaved. In the following steps, the 3' splice site is cleaved and exon 1 and exon 2 are linked together. The intron is released as a free lariat (9,37,42,44).There is evidence that at least five different small ribonucleoprotein particles (snRNPs) are involved in this process (29). These trans-acting factors are involved in the recognition of introns by interacting with specific cis-acting signals such as the 5' splice site, branch sequence, and 3' splice site of the precursor RNA (3, 4, 7). In addition, specific snRNPsnRNP interactions also seem to play a role in the spliceosome assembly and in the splicing process itself (4, 24). However, the precise functions of each of the snRNPs are not yet fully understood (6,7,27,36). Single proteins are also involved in the splicing process, although little is known about their functions (28).It is interesting that the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe appear to have introns which differ from one another and from those in higher eucaryotes. In contrast to the introns i...