Guide-substrate base-pairing requirement for box H/ACA RNA-guided RNA pseudouridylation

Abstract

Box H/ACA RNAs are a group of small RNAs found in abundance in eukaryotes (as well as in archaea). Although their sequences differ, eukaryotic box H/ACA RNAs all share the same unique hairpin-hinge-hairpin-tail structure. Almost all of them function as guides that primarily direct pseudouridylation of rRNAs and spliceosomal snRNAs at specific sites. Although box H/ACA RNA-guided pseudouridylation has been extensively studied, the detailed rules governing this reaction, especially those concerning the guide RNA-substrate RNA base-pairing interactions that determine the specificity and efficiency of pseudouridylation, are still not exactly clear. This is particularly relevant given that the lengths of the guide sequences involved in base-pairing vary from one box H/ACA RNA to another. Here, we carry out a detailed investigation into guide-substrate base-pairing interactions, and identify the minimum number of base pairs (8), required for RNA-guided pseudouridylation. In addition, we find that the pseudouridylation pocket, present in each hairpin of box H/ACA RNA, exhibits flexibility in fitting slightly different substrate sequences. Our results are consistent across three independent pseudouridylation pockets tested, suggesting that our findings are generally applicable to box H/ACA RNA-guided RNA pseudouridylation.