Faculty Opinions recommendation of Ribosome profiling reveals pervasive and regulated stop codon readthrough in Drosophila melanogaster.

Ribosomes can read through stop codons in a regulated manner, elongating rather than terminating the nascent peptide. Stop codon readthrough is essential to diverse viruses, and phylogenetically predicted to occur in a few hundred genes in Drosophila melanogaster, but the importance of regulated readthrough in eukaryotes remains largely unexplored. Here, we present a ribosome profiling assay (deep sequencing of ribosome-protected mRNA fragments) for Drosophila melanogaster, and provide the first genome-wide experimental analysis of readthrough. Readthrough is far more pervasive than expected: the vast majority of readthrough events evolved within D. melanogaster and were not predicted phylogenetically. The resulting C-terminal protein extensions show evidence of selection, contain functional subcellular localization signals, and their readthrough is regulated, arguing for their importance. We further demonstrate that readthrough occurs in yeast and humans. Readthrough thus provides general mechanisms both to regulate gene expression and function, and to add plasticity to the proteome during evolution.

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Transcriptome-wide investigation of stop codon readthrough in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

10.1101/2020.12.15.422930 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Kotchaphorn Mangkalaphiban ◽

Feng He ◽

Robin Ganesan ◽

Chan Wu ◽

Richard Baker ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Stop Codon ◽

Regulatory Elements ◽

Ribosome Profiling ◽

Yeast Cells ◽

Temperature Sensitive ◽

Wild Type ◽

Coding Region ◽

Genome Wide ◽

A Genome ◽

Stop Codon Readthrough

Translation of mRNA into a polypeptide is terminated when the release factor eRF1 recognizes a UAA, UAG, or UGA stop codon in the ribosomal A site and stimulates nascent peptide release. However, stop codon readthrough can occur when a near-cognate tRNA outcompetes eRF1 in decoding the stop codon, resulting in the continuation of the elongation phase of protein synthesis. At the end of a conventional mRNA coding region, readthrough allows translation into the mRNA 3′-UTR. Previous studies with reporter systems have shown that the efficiency of termination or readthrough is modulated by cis-acting elements other than stop codon identity, including two nucleotides 5′ of the stop codon, six nucleotides 3′ of the stop codon in the ribosomal mRNA channel, and stem-loop structures in the mRNA 3′-UTR. It is unknown whether these elements are important at a genome-wide level and whether other mRNA features proximal to the stop codon significantly affect termination and readthrough efficiencies in vivo. Accordingly, we carried out ribosome profiling analyses of yeast cells expressing wild-type or temperature-sensitive eRF1 and developed bioinformatics strategies to calculate readthrough efficiency, and to identify mRNA and peptide features which influence that efficiency. We found that the stop codon (nt +1 to +3), the nucleotide after it (nt +4), the codon in the P site (nt -3 to -1), and 3′-UTR length are the most influential features in the control of readthrough efficiency, while nts +5 to +9 and mRNA secondary structure in the 3′-UTR had milder effects. Additionally, we found low readthrough genes to have shorter 3′-UTRs compared to high readthrough genes in cells with thermally inactivated eRF1, while this trend was reversed in wild-type cells. Together, our results demonstrated the general roles of known regulatory elements in genome-wide regulation and identified several new mRNA or peptide features affecting the efficiency of translation termination and readthrough.

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Transcriptome-wide investigation of stop codon readthrough in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

PLoS Genetics ◽

10.1371/journal.pgen.1009538 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 17 (4) ◽

pp. e1009538

Author(s):

Kotchaphorn Mangkalaphiban ◽

Feng He ◽

Robin Ganesan ◽

Chan Wu ◽

Richard Baker ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Stop Codon ◽

Regulatory Elements ◽

Ribosome Profiling ◽

Yeast Cells ◽

Temperature Sensitive ◽

Wild Type ◽

Coding Region ◽

Genome Wide ◽

A Genome ◽

Stop Codon Readthrough

Translation of mRNA into a polypeptide is terminated when the release factor eRF1 recognizes a UAA, UAG, or UGA stop codon in the ribosomal A site and stimulates nascent peptide release. However, stop codon readthrough can occur when a near-cognate tRNA outcompetes eRF1 in decoding the stop codon, resulting in the continuation of the elongation phase of protein synthesis. At the end of a conventional mRNA coding region, readthrough allows translation into the mRNA 3’-UTR. Previous studies with reporter systems have shown that the efficiency of termination or readthrough is modulated by cis-acting elements other than stop codon identity, including two nucleotides 5’ of the stop codon, six nucleotides 3’ of the stop codon in the ribosomal mRNA channel, and stem-loop structures in the mRNA 3’-UTR. It is unknown whether these elements are important at a genome-wide level and whether other mRNA features proximal to the stop codon significantly affect termination and readthrough efficiencies in vivo. Accordingly, we carried out ribosome profiling analyses of yeast cells expressing wild-type or temperature-sensitive eRF1 and developed bioinformatics strategies to calculate readthrough efficiency, and to identify mRNA and peptide features which influence that efficiency. We found that the stop codon (nt +1 to +3), the nucleotide after it (nt +4), the codon in the P site (nt -3 to -1), and 3’-UTR length are the most influential features in the control of readthrough efficiency, while nts +5 to +9 had milder effects. Additionally, we found low readthrough genes to have shorter 3’-UTRs compared to high readthrough genes in cells with thermally inactivated eRF1, while this trend was reversed in wild-type cells. Together, our results demonstrated the general roles of known regulatory elements in genome-wide regulation and identified several new mRNA or peptide features affecting the efficiency of translation termination and readthrough.

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Ribosome recycling factor ABCE1 depletion inhibits nonsense-mediated mRNA decay by promoting stop codon readthrough

10.1101/870097 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Giuditta Annibaldis ◽

René Dreos ◽

Michal Domanski ◽

Sarah Carl ◽

Oliver Mühlemann

Keyword(s):

Mrna Decay ◽

Stop Codon ◽

Translation Termination ◽

Ribosome Profiling ◽

List Type ◽

Ribosome Recycling Factor ◽

Stop Codons ◽

Nonsense Mediated Mrna Decay ◽

Ribosome Disassembly ◽

Stop Codon Readthrough

SUMMARYNonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is an essential post-transcriptional surveillance pathway in vertebrates that appears to be mechanistically linked with translation termination. To gain more insight into this connection, we interfered with translation termination by depleting human cells of the ribosome recycling factor ABCE1, which resulted in an upregulation of many but not all endogenous NMD-sensitive mRNAs. Notably, the suppression of NMD on these mRNAs occurs at a step prior to their SMG6-mediated endonucleolytic cleavage. Ribosome profiling revealed that ABCE1 depletion results in ribosome stalling at stop codons and increased ribosome occupancy in 3’ UTRs, indicative of enhanced stop codon readthrough or re-initiation. Using reporter genes, we further demonstrate that the absence of ABCE1 indeed increases the rate of readthrough, which would explain the observed NMD inhibition, since enhanced readthrough has been previously shown to render NMD-sensitive transcripts resistant to NMD by displacing NMD triggering factors like UPF1 and exon junction complexes (EJCs) from the 3’ UTR. Collectively, our results show that improper ribosome disassembly interferes with proper NMD activation.HighlightsABCE1 knockdown suppresses NMD of many NMD-sensitive mRNAsThe observed NMD inhibition occurs at a stage prior to SMG6-mediated cleavage of the mRNAABCE1 depletion enhances ribosome occupancy at stop codons and in the 3’ UTRABCE1 depletion enhances readthrough of the stop codonEnhanced readthrough inhibits NMD, presumably by clearing the 3’ UTR of NMD factors

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Identification of mRNAs that undergo stop codon readthrough in Arabidopsis thaliana

10.1101/2021.11.09.467898 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sarthak Sahoo ◽

Divyoj Singh ◽

Anumeha Singh ◽

Sandeep M. Eswarappa

Keyword(s):

Arabidopsis Thaliana ◽

Stop Codon ◽

Protein Localization ◽

Abiotic Stress Tolerance ◽

Ribosome Profiling ◽

Protein Isoforms ◽

Functional Enrichment ◽

Intrinsically Disordered ◽

Intrinsically Disordered Regions ◽

Stop Codon Readthrough

A stop codon ensures termination of translation at a specific position on an mRNA. Sometimes, termination fails as translation machinery recognizes a stop codon as a sense codon. This leads to stop codon readthrough (SCR) resulting in the continuation of translation beyond the stop codon, generating protein isoforms with C-terminal extension. SCR has been observed in viruses, fungi, and multicellular organisms including mammals. However, SCR is largely unexplored in plants. In this study, we have analyzed ribosome profiling datasets to identify mRNAs that undergo SCR in Arabidopsis thaliana. Analyses of the ribosome density, ribosome coverage and three-nucleotide periodicity of the ribosome profiling reads, in the mRNA region downstream of the stop codon, provided strong evidence for SCR in mRNAs of 144 genes. This process generates putative peroxisomal targeting signal, nuclear localization signal, prenylation signal, transmembrane helix and intrinsically disordered regions in the C-terminal extension of several of these proteins. Gene ontology (GO) functional enrichment analysis revealed that these 144 genes belong to three major functional groups - translation, photosynthesis and abiotic stress tolerance. Finally, using a luminescence-based assay, we experimentally demonstrate SCR in representative mRNAs belonging to these functional classes. Based on these observations, we propose that SCR plays an important role in plant physiology by regulating the protein localization and function.

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