Ribosome profiling reveals pervasive and regulated stop codon readthrough in Drosophila melanogaster.

ABSTRACT: 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 function

SUBMITTER: Dunn JG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3840789 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature