Pre-mRNAs undergo splicing to remove introns, and the spliced mRNA is exported to the cytoplasm for translation. Here we investigated the mechanism for recruitment of the conserved mRNA export machinery (TREX complex) to mRNA. We show that the human TREX complex is recruited to a region near the 5' end of mRNA, with the TREX component Aly bound closest to the 5' cap. Both TREX recruitment and mRNA export require the cap, and these roles for the cap are splicing dependent. CBP80, which is bound to the cap, associates efficiently with TREX, and Aly mediates this interaction. Together, these data indicate that the CBP80-Aly interaction results in recruitment of TREX to the 5' end of mRNA, where it functions in mRNA export. As a consequence, the mRNA would be exported in a 5' to 3' direction through the nuclear pore, as observed in early electron micrographs of giant Balbiani ring mRNPs.

In eukaryotic cells, most mRNAs are exported from the nucleus by the transcription export (TREX) complex, which is loaded onto mRNAs after their splicing and capping. We have studied in mammalian cells the nuclear export of mRNAs that code for secretory proteins, which are targeted to the endoplasmic reticulum membrane by hydrophobic signal sequences. The mRNAs were injected into the nucleus or synthesized from injected or transfected DNA, and their export was followed by fluorescent in situ hybridization. We made the surprising observation that the signal sequence coding region (SSCR) can serve as a nuclear export signal of an mRNA that lacks an intron or functional cap. Even the export of an intron-containing natural mRNA was enhanced by its SSCR. Like conventional export, the SSCR-dependent pathway required the factor TAP, but depletion of the TREX components had only moderate effects. The SSCR export signal appears to be characterized in vertebrates by a low content of adenines, as demonstrated by genome-wide sequence analysis and by the inhibitory effect of silent adenine mutations in SSCRs. The discovery of an SSCR-mediated pathway explains the previously noted amino acid bias in signal sequences and suggests a link between nuclear export and membrane targeting of mRNAs.

The conserved RNA helicase DDX3 is of major medical importance due to its involvement in numerous cancers, human hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV. Although DDX3 has been reported to have a wide variety of cellular functions, its precise role remains obscure. Here, we raised a new antibody to DDX3 and used it to show that DDX3 is evenly distributed throughout the cytoplasm at steady state. Consistent with this observation, HA-tagged DDX3 also localizes to the cytoplasm. RNAi of DDX3 in both human and Drosophila cells shows that DDX3 is required for cell viability. Moreover, using RNAi, we show that DDX3 is required for expression of protein from reporter constructs. In contrast, we did not detect a role for DDX3 in nuclear steps in gene expression. Further insight into the function of DDX3 came from the observation that its major interaction partner is the multi-component translation initiation factor eIF3. We conclude that a primary function for DDX3 is in protein translation, via an interaction with eIF3.

In eukaryotes, a surveillance mechanism known as nonsensemediated decay (NMD) degrades the mRNA when a prematuretermination codon (PTC) is present. NMD requires translation to read the frame of the mRNA and detect the PTC. During pre-mRNA splicing, the exon-exon junction complex (EJC) is recruited to a region 20 -24 nt upstream of the exon junction on the mature mRNA. The presence of a PTC upstream from the EJC elicits NMD. Eukaryotic initiation factor 4A (eIF4A) III is a nuclear protein that interacts physically or functionally with translation initiation factors eIF4G and eIF4B, respectively, and shares strikingly high identity with the initiation factors eIF4AI͞II. Here we show that siRNA against eIF4AIII, but not against eIF4AI͞II, inhibits NMD. Moreover, eIF4AIII, but not eIF4AI, is specifically recruited to the EJC during splicing. The observations that eIF4AIII is loaded onto the mRNA during splicing in the nucleus, has properties related to a translation initiation factor, and functions in NMD raises the possibility that eIF4AIII substitutes for eIF4AI͞II during NMD.