RESEARCH ARTICLE An ancient germ cell-specific RNA-binding protein protects the germline from cryptic splice site poisoning Ingrid Ehrmann1, James H Crichton2, Matthew R Gazzara3,4, Katherine James5, Yilei Liu1,6, Sushma Nagaraja Grellscheid1,7, TomazˇCurk8, Dirk de Rooij9,10, Jannetta S Steyn11, Simon Cockell11, Ian R Adams2, Yoseph Barash3,12*, David J Elliott1* 1Institute of Genetic Medicine, Newcastle University, Newcastle, United Kingdom; 2MRC Human Genetics Unit, MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom; 3Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States; 4Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States; 5Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom; 6Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zu¨ rich, Zu¨ rich, Switzerland; 7School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, University of Durham, Durham, United Kingdom; 8Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Faculty of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia; 9Reproductive Biology Group, Division of Developmental Biology, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; 10Center for Reproductive Medicine, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; 11Bioinformatics Support Unit, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle, United Kingdom; 12Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States *For correspondence:
[email protected] (YB);
[email protected] (DJE) Competing interests: The Abstract Male germ cells of all placental mammals express an ancient nuclear RNA binding authors declare that no protein of unknown function called RBMXL2. Here we find that deletion of the retrogene encoding competing interests exist.