Moderate activity of RNA chaperone maximizes the yield of self-spliced pre-RNA in vivo

CYT-19 is a DEAD-box protein whose ATP-dependent helicase activity facilitates the folding of group I introns in precursor RNA (pre-RNA) of Neurospora crassa. In the process they consume a substantial amount of ATP. While much of the mechanistic insights into CYT-19 activity has been gained through the studies on the folding of Tetrahymena group I intron ribozyme, the more biologically relevant issue, namely the effect of CYT-19 on the self-splicing of pre-RNA, remains largely unexplored. Here, we employ a kinetic network model, based on the generalized iterative annealing mechanism, to investigate the relation between CYT-19 activity, rate of ribozyme folding, and the kinetics of the self-splicing reaction. The network rate parameters are extracted by analyzing the recent biochemical data for CYT-19-facilitated folding of T. ribozyme. We then build extended models to explore the metabolism of pre-RNA. We show that the timescales of chaperone-mediated folding of group I ribozyme and self-splicing reaction compete with each other. As a consequence, in order to maximize the self-splicing yield of group I introns in pre-RNA, the chaperone activity must be sufficiently large to unfold the misfolded structures, but not too large to unfold the native structures prior to the self-splicing event. We discover that despite the promiscuous action on structured RNAs, the helicase activity of CYT-19 on group I ribozyme gives rise to self-splicing yields that are close to the maximum. Significance StatementIn cells, RNA chaperones assist misfolding-prone ribozymes to fold correctly to carry out its biological function. CYT-19 is an ATP-consuming RNA chaperone that accelerates the production of native group I intron ribozyme by partially unfolding the kinetically trapped structures. Using the theoretical framework based on the iterative annealing mechanism, we establish that to maximize the processing of pre-RNA, an optimal balance should exist between the timescales of self-splicing activity and CYT-19-mediated production of the native ribozyme. Remarkably, the activity of CYT-19 has been optimized to unfold the misfolded structures but is not so high that it disrupts the native ribozyme, which ensures that the yield of the self-splicing reaction is maximized in a biologically relevant time scale.