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RNA processing

Nonstop destruction

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 3, page 324 (2002)Cite this article

The cell has evolved an array of quality-control mechanisms to ensure gene expression occurs correctly, such as nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), which detects mRNAs that contain premature termination codons and stops the formation of truncated proteins.

But what happens when an mRNA has no stop codons? Frischmeyer and colleagues generated a nonstop-PGK1 construct — in which all in-frame termination codons were removed — and found that these nonstop transcripts were just as unstable in Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells as a nonsense form of the gene. However, the nonstop transcripts were still unstable in yeast mutants that lacked factors required for both the NMD pathway and for the destruction of normal mRNAs. Moreover, their destruction required translation, which indicates that this process occurs through a different pathway.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Frischmeyer, P. A. et al. An mRNA surveillance mechanism that eliminates transcripts lacking termination codons. Science 295, 2258–2261 (2002)

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  2. Van Hoof, A. et al. Exosome-mediated recognition and degradation of mRNAs lacking a termination codon. Science 295, 2262–2264 (2002)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

FURTHER READING

  1. Macquat, L. E. Skiing toward nonstop mRNA decay. Science 295, 2221–2222 (2002)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology,

    Simon Frantz

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  1. Simon Frantz
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Frantz, S. Nonstop destruction. Nat Rev Genet 3, 324 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg802

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg802

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