We have previously shown that a specific monoclonal
antibody prepared against the U1A protein, MAb 12E12, is
unique in its ability to recognize a form of U1A which
is not associated with the U1snRNP. This unique form of
U1A, termed snRNP-free U1A or
SF-A, was found to be complexed with a novel set of non-snRNP
proteins (O'Connor et al., 1997, RNA 3:1444-1455).
Here we demonstrate that the largest protein in these SF-A
complex(es), p105, is the polypyrimidine-tract binding
protein-associated factor (PSF), an auxiliary splicing
factor. We show that PSF copurifies and co-immunoprecipitates
with SF-A from 293T cell nucleoplasm and that it interacts
with SF-A in vitro. In addition, we show that MAb 12E12
inhibits both splicing and polyadenylation in an in vitro
coupled splicing and polyadenylation reaction. This suggests
that SF-A and/or the SF-A complex(es) perform an important
function in both processing reactions and possibly in last
exon definition.