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Updated: Jan 9, 2026

In vivo Application of the REMOTE-control System for the Manipulation of Endogenous Gene Expression
Published on: March 29, 2019
An RNA splicing system that excises DNA transposons from animal mRNAs
Long-Wen Zhao1, Christopher Nardone1,2,3,4, Cindy Chang1
1Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
None:
All genomes have mobile genetic segments called transposable elements (TEs)1. Here we describe a system, which we term SOS splicing, that protects Caenorhabditis elegans and human genes against DNA-transposon-mediated disruption by excising these TEs from host mRNAs. SOS splicing, which seems to operate independently of the spliceosome, is a pattern-recognition system triggered by the base-pairing of inverted terminal repeat elements, which are a defining feature of DNA transposons. We identify three factors required for SOS splicing in both C. elegans and human cells: AKAP17A, which binds TE-containing mRNAs; the RNA ligase RTCB; and CAAP1, which bridges RTCB and AKAP17A to allow RTCB to ligate mRNA fragments generated by TE excision. We propose that SOS splicing is a previously undescribed conserved and RNA-structure-directed mode of mRNA splicing, and that an identified function of SOS splicing is to genetically buffer animals from the deleterious effects of DNA-transposon-mediated gene perturbation.
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