Nonsense-mediated RNA decay: at the ‘cutting edge’ of regulated snoRNA production

Production of multiple functional RNAs from a single primary transcript is an extremely efficient use of genetic information, although it complicates the ability of the cell to independently regulate the production of each RNA. For the case of small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) encoded within introns of mRNA genes, Lykke-Andersen and colleagues (pp. 2498–2517) demonstrated that alternative splicing and the SMG6 endonuclease of the nonsense-mediated RNA decay pathway are key regulators that control which RNAs accumulate.