Slip-Sliding the Frame: Programmed −1 Frameshifting on Eukaryotic Transcripts
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27157-1064 USA
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
The basic mechanisms of mRNA translation are ubiquitous among all organisms, in that the accurate decoding of triplet codon sequences programs serial amide linkages of amino acid residues by ribosomal complexes. In general, the fidelity of this process is dependent on both accurate recognition of mRNA codons by aminoacyl tRNAs and maintenance of the corresponding open reading frame. However, in a growing number of cases, deviations from this triplet codon rule are observed, indicating that the information content of an mRNA to encode protein may extend beyond its primary structure. These cases, collectively referred to as translational recoding (for review, seeGesteland and Atkins 1996), present exceptions to the venerable genetic code and are typically subdivided among three primary mechanisms: (1) frameshifting, in which translating ribosomes are induced to slide one nucleotide forward or backward at a distinct point in the transcript, with protein synthesis then continuing in the +1 or −1 reading frame, respectively; (2) alternative codon usage, where stop codons are not interpreted as sites of translational termination but, rather, encode an amino acid residue; and (3) translational bypassing, where the translational machinery traverses a gap in the mRNA coding sequence yet yields a single polypeptide chain.
Programmed −1 ribosomal frameshift signals are among the most extensively characterized of these translational recoding phenomena (for review, see Brierly 1995; Dinman 1995; Farabaugh 1996). Although current examples are largely limited to viral systems, some bacterial −1 frameshifting events have also been documented (Blinkowa and Walker …
