Trypanosomatidae is a family of early branching eukaryotes harbouring a distinctive repertoire of gene expression strategies. Functional mature messenger RNA is generated via the
trans-splicing and polyadenylation processing of constitutively transcribed polycistronic units. Recently,
trans-splicing of pre-small subunit ribosomal RNA in the 5' external transcribed spacer region and of precursor tRNA
sec have been described. Here, we used a previously validated semi-nested reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction strategy to investigate internal transcribed spacer (ITS) I acceptor sites in total RNA from
Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis
. Two distinct spliced leader-containing RNAs were detected indicating that trans-splicing reactions occur at two AG acceptor sites mapped in this ITS region. These data provide further evidence of the wide spectrum of RNA molecules that act as
trans-splicing acceptors in trypanosomatids.
