Cite this article: Yamashita A, Shichino Y, machinery to silent meiotic genes. Open Biol 2: Keywords: †Present address: Hirotsugu Tanaka, Toukoudai

mediate recruitment of the RNA eliminationrsob.royalsocietypublishing.org1. Summary The selective elimination system blocks the accumulation of meiosis-specific mRNAs during the mitotic cell cycle in fission yeast. These mRNAs harbour a region, the determinant of selective removal (DSR), which is recognized by a YTH-family RNA-binding protein, Mmi1. Mmi1 directs target transcripts to destruction in association with nuclear exosomes. Hence, the interaction between DSR andMmi1 is crucial to discriminatemitosis frommeiosis. Here,we show that Mmi1 interacts with repeats of the hexanucleotide U(U/C)AAAC that are enriched in theDSR.Disruption of this ‘DSR coremotif ’ in a targetmRNA inhibits its elimination. Tandem repeats of the motif can function as an artificial DSR. Mmi1 binds to it in vitro. Thus, a core motif cluster is responsible for the DSR activity. Furthermore, certain variant hexanucleotide motifs can augment the function of the DSR core motif. Notably, meiRNA, which composes the nuclear Mei2 dot required to suppress Mmi1 activity during meiosis, carries numerous copies of the core/augmenting motifs on its tail and is indeed degraded by the Mmi1/exosome system, indicating its likely role as decoy bait for Mmi1. 2