| Citation | Professor Nick Proudfoot is a distinguished molecular biologist who has made novel and important contributions in the field of mRNA processing. Early in his career in the 1970s, while studying globin mRNA, he discovered the ubiquitous AAUAAA signal present in the 3' non coding region of nearly all mammalian mRNAs. Later on, he characterized a GU rich sequence flanking the beta globin gene which, together with the AAUAAA signal, directs transcriptional termination and polyadenylation of mRNA. His proposal, made in the 1970s, that transcriptional termination and polyadenylation were coupled was completely original; but it has been amply confirmed by his more recent studies in both mammalian cells and in yeast. Extending his RNA processing interests to splicing, he has uncovered an interaction between polyadenylation and splicing in the control of polyadenylation in retroviruses. "Transinduction" a phenomenon described by Proudfoot very recently, suggest that the control of expression of the beta globin locus may be more flexible
than was previously thought. In summary, his pioneering work on polyadenylation and transcriptional termination has had a major impact on our current knowledge of the mechanism and control of mRNA processing. |