In addition to RNase H(70) two other proteins of Saccharomyces cerevisiae exhibit ribonuclease H activity

Two ribonucleases H (RNases H) were purified to apparent homogeneity from the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The enzymes were separated from the previously described yeast ribonuclease H (RNase H(70), Karwan, R., Blutsch, H., and Wintersberger, U. (1983) Biochemistry 22, 5500-5507) by chromatography on Mono Q and blue-Sepharose columns and from each other on a Mono S column. The two proteins, RNase H(55) of molecular weight around 55,000 and RNase H(42) of molecular weight around 42,000, exhibit distinct enzymatic properties: RNase H(55) acts as a 5'-exonuclease of low specific activity and produces predominantly monoribonucleotides from the synthetic hybrid poly(rA)-poly(dT). RNase H(42) efficiently releases oligoribonucleotides from the same substrate. Polyclonal antibodies against these proteins do not cross-react with RNase H(70), and thus, these two RNases H probably do not represent proteolytic breakdown products of RNase H(70). Peptide maps obtained by total digestion of RNase H(55) and RNase H(42) with trypsin reveal several common peptides and, therefore, suggest that the two enzymes are related to each other. We tentatively conclude that RNase H(55) is proteolytically processed to RNase H(42) in vivo.