Nucleic Acids Research, 1980, Vol. 8, No. 19 4501-4516
© 1980
ENZYMOLOGY |
An Escherichia coli endonuclease responsible for primary cleavage of in vitro transcripts of bacteriophage T4 tRNA gene cluster
Biochemistry Department, The Weizmann Institute of Science Rehovot, Israel
Received May 28, 1980. An endonuclease activity was isolated from 100,000 g supematant fraction of Escherichia coli using in vitro primary transcripts of T4 tRNA gene cluster as assay substrates. The endonuclease cleaves the polycistronic RNA precursors into fragments containing monomeric and dimeric stable RNA sequences. The results strongly suggest that this enzyme participates in the early steps of T4 tRNA maturation pathway preceding the action of RNase P.