Selection for Tandem Stop Codons in Ciliate Species with Reassigned Stop Codons

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2019 Nov 27

PMID 31770405

Citations 4

Authors

Ira Fleming

Andre R O Cavalcanti

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The failure of mRNA translation machinery to recognize a stop codon as a termination signal and subsequent translation of the 3' untranslated region (UTR) is referred to as stop codon readthrough, the frequency of which is related to the length, composition, and structure of mRNA sequences downstream of end-of-gene stop codons. Secondary in-frame stop codons within a few positions downstream of the primary stop codons, so-called tandem stop codons (TSCs), serve as backup termination signals, which limit the effects of readthrough: polypeptide product degradation, mislocalization, and aggregation. In this study, ciliate species with UAA and UAG stop codons reassigned to code for glutamine are found to possess statistical excesses of TSCs at the beginning of their 3' UTRs. The overrepresentation of TSCs in these species is greater than that observed in standard code organisms. Though the overall numbers of TSCs are lower in most species with alternative stop codons because they use fewer than three unique stop codons, the relatively great overrepresentation of TSCs in alternative-code ciliate species suggests that there exist stronger selective pressures to maintain TSCs in these organisms compared to standard code organisms.

Citing Articles

Identification of a non-canonical ciliate nuclear genetic code where UAA and UAG code for different amino acids.

McGowan J, Kilias E, Alacid E, Lipscombe J, Jenkins B, Gharbi K PLoS Genet. 2023; 19(10):e1010913.

PMID: 37796765 PMC: 10553269. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010913.

Tissue-specific regulation of translational readthrough tunes functions of the traffic jam transcription factor.

Karki P, Carney T, Maracci C, Yatsenko A, Shcherbata H, Rodnina M Nucleic Acids Res. 2021; 50(11):6001-6019.

PMID: 34897510 PMC: 9226519. DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkab1189.

Molecular Insights into Determinants of Translational Readthrough and Implications for Nonsense Suppression Approaches.

Lombardi S, Testa M, Pinotti M, Branchini A Int J Mol Sci. 2020; 21(24).

PMID: 33322589 PMC: 7764779. DOI: 10.3390/ijms21249449.

Effective Population Size Predicts Local Rates but Not Local Mitigation of Read-through Errors.

Ho A, Hurst L Mol Biol Evol. 2020; 38(1):244-262.

PMID: 32797190 PMC: 7783166. DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msaa210.

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