Diazaborine Treatment of Yeast Cells Inhibits Maturation of the 60S Ribosomal Subunit

Abstract

Diazaborine treatment of yeast cells was shown previously to cause accumulation of aberrant, 3′-elongated mRNAs. Here we demonstrate that the drug inhibits maturation of rRNAs for the large ribosomal subunit. Pulse-chase analyses showed that the processing of the 27S pre-rRNA to consecutive species was blocked in the drug-treated wild-type strain. The steady-state level of the 7S pre-rRNA was clearly reduced after short-term treatment with the inhibitor. At the same time an increase of the 35S pre-rRNA was observed. Longer incubation with the inhibitor resulted in a decrease of the 27S precursor. Primer extension assays showed that an early step in 27S pre-rRNA processing is inhibited, which results in an accumulation of the 27SA2 pre-rRNA and a strong decrease of the 27SA3, 27SB1L, and 27SB1S precursors. The rRNA processing pattern observed after diazaborine treatment resembles that reported after depletion of the RNA binding protein Nop4p/Nop77p. This protein is essential for correct pre-27S rRNA processing. Using a green fluorescent protein-Nop4 fusion, we found that diazaborine treatment causes, within minutes, a rapid redistribution of the protein from the nucleolus to the periphery of the nucleus, which provides a possible explanation for the effect of diazaborine on rRNA processing.

We thank Roger Schneiter, Ernst Müllner, and Günther Koraimann for helpful discussions; Dale Hailey and David S. Goldfarb for the plasmids pDH5 and pNLS-GFP; and Johannes H. Hegemann for the plasmids pUG35 and pUG36. We thank the Novartis Research Institute, Vienna, Austria, for a gift of diazaborine and Friederike Turnowsky for critically reading the manuscript.

This work was supported by grant no. P15458 of the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF).