Eukaryotic translational coupling in UAAUG stop-start codons for the bicistronic RNA translation of the non-long terminal repeat retrotransposon SART1.

ABSTRACT: Most eukaryotic cellular mRNAs are monocistronic; however, many retroviruses and long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons encode multiple proteins on a single RNA transcript using ribosomal frameshifting. Non-long terminal repeat (non-LTR) retrotransposons are considered the ancestor of LTR retrotransposons and retroviruses, but their translational mechanism of bicistronic RNA remains unknown. We used a baculovirus expression system to produce a large amount of the bicistronic RNA of SART1, a non-LTR retrotransposon of the silkworm, and were able to detect the second open reading frame protein (ORF2) by Western blotting. The ORF2 protein was translated as an independent protein, not as an ORF1-ORF2 fusion protein. We revealed by mutagenesis that the UAAUG overlapping stop-start codon an

SUBMITTER: Kojima KK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1190309 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature