The Cellular EJC Interactome Reveals Higher-Order mRNP Structure and an EJC-SR Protein Nexus

To uncover exon junction complex (EJC) deposition sites on cellular mRNAs, RNA footprints of EJC immuo-purified from HEK293 cells were deep sequenced. The analysis of these data revealed that major “canonical” EJC occupancy site in vivo lies 24 nucleotides upstream of exon junctions (-24 position) and that the majority of exon junctions carry an EJC. Unexpectedly, we find that many sites further upstream of -24 position are also enriched in these EJC footprints. These "non-canonical" sites are binding sites of EJC-interacting proteins with a subset being occupied by SR proteins. Thus, an EJC-SR protein nexus exists within spliced mRNPs and is revealed here. Deep sequencing based profiling of EJC RNA footprints obtained by tandem RNA immunoprecipitation (RIPiT) of RNase I digested RNA:protein complexes.