Plasmodium falciparum spliceosomal RNAs: 3′ and 5′ end processing

The major spliceosomal small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs) consist of snRNA (U1, U2, U4 or U5) and several proteins which can be unique or common to each snRNP particle. The common proteins are known as Sm proteins; they are crucial for RNP assembly and nuclear import of spliceosomal RNPs. This paper reports detecting the interaction between Plasmodium falciparum snRNAs and Sm proteins, and the usual 5′ trimethylated caps on the snRNAs, by immunoprecipitation with specific antibodies. Furthermore, an unusual poly(A) tail was detected on these non-coding RNAs.