Purification and characterization of an RNA processing enzyme from Caulobacter crescentus

An RNA processing enzyme has been isolated from Caulobacter crescentus which is specific for double-stranded RNA, has an absolute requirement for monovalent cations, and can be eluted from a poly I:C agarose affinity column in pure form. This enzyme, like RNase III isolated from Escherichia coli, processes precursor ribosomal RNAs and polycistronic phage mRNAs and has a monomeric Mr of approximately 20,000. The two enzymes differ, however, in the recognition of specific cleavage sites and yield different digestion products when either coliphage T7 or C. crescentus phage phi Cdl early mRNA is used as substrate. Two lines of evidence are presented which show that an RNase III activity functions as a processing enzyme in C. crescentus. (a) In an in vitro reaction, C. crescentus phage phi Cdl major early mRNA synthesized in vitro by host RNA polymerase was processed by RNase III to yield RNA species which co-migrated with phage RNA synthesized in vivo in phi Cdl-infected cells, and (b) an in vitro transcript of a C. crescentus DNA clone containing the entire 16 S gene and part of the 23 S gene was processed by C. crescentus RNase III to yield an RNA product which co-migrated with 16 S RNA. The RNase III activity isolated from C. crescentus cell extracts has potential use in the analysis of specific RNA species because it was found to be more stringent in the recognition of cleavage sites than the E. coli enzyme.