Pre-mRNA splicing in the nuclei of Xenopus oocytes

Xenopus oocytes have been utilized in a number of laboratories as an experimental system to study a variety of biological processes. Here, we describe its application to functional studies of spliceosomal small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) in pre-messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) splicing, a process that occurs extremely efficiently in Xenopus oocytes. A DNA oligonucleotide complementary to an snRNA of interest is injected into the oocyte cytoplasm. The oligonucleotide subsequently diffuses into the nucleus and hybridizes to the target snRNA, thereby triggering snRNA degradation via endogenous RNase H activity. By the time the endogenous snRNA is depleted, the DNA oligonucleotide itself is degraded by endogenous deoxyribonuclease (DNase) activity. In principle, this procedure enables one to quantitatively deplete any snRNA of choice. Subsequently, a rescuing snRNA that is constructed in vitro may be injected into the snRNA-depleted oocytes to restore the splicing function. After reconstitution, a radiolabeled splicing substrate is injected into the nuclei of the oocytes. These oocyte nuclei are then manually isolated and used to prepare both nuclear RNA for splicing assays and nuclear extract for spliceosome assembly assays. The ability of an injected rescuing snRNA to reconstitute splicing can therefore be tested. Because all types of rescuing snRNAs (e.g., mutant snRNAs, snRNAs with or without modified nucleotides) can be constructed readily, the results obtained from this procedure provide valuable information on the function of a particular snRNA of interest in pre-mRNA splicing.