Project description:Ribosomal frameshifting refers to the process that ribosomes slip into +1 or -1 reading frame, thus produce chimeric trans-frame proteins. In viruses and bacteria, programmed ribosomal frameshifting can produce essential trans-frame proteins for viral replication or regulation of other biological processes. In humans, however, functional trans-frame protein derived from ribosomal frameshifting is scarcely documented. Combining multiple assays, we show that short codon repeats could act as cis-acting elements that stimulate ribosomal frameshifting in humans, abbreviated as CRFS hereafter. Using proteomic analyses, we identified many putative CRFS events from 32 normal human tissues supported by trans-frame peptides positioned at codon repeats. Finally, we show a CRFS-derived trans-frame protein (HDAC1-FS) functions by antagonizing the activities of HDAC1, thus affecting cell migration and apoptosis. These data suggest a novel type of translational recoding associated with codon repeats, which may expand the coding capacity of mRNA and diversify the regulation in human.
Project description:Ribosomal frameshifting refers to the process that ribosomes slip into +1 or -1 reading frame, thus produce chimeric trans-frame proteins. In viruses and bacteria, programmed ribosomal frameshifting can produce essential trans-frame proteins for viral replication or regulation of other biological processes. In humans, however, functional trans-frame protein derived from ribosomal frameshifting is scarcely documented. Combining multiple assays, we show that short codon repeats could act as cis-acting elements that stimulate ribosomal frameshifting in humans, abbreviated as CRFS hereafter. Using proteomic analyses, we identified many putative CRFS events from 32 normal human tissues supported by trans-frame peptides positioned at codon repeats. Finally, we show a CRFS-derived trans-frame protein (HDAC1-FS) functions by antagonizing the activities of HDAC1, thus affecting cell migration and apoptosis. These data suggest a novel type of translational recoding associated with codon repeats,which may expand the coding capacity of mRNA and diversify the regulation in human.
Project description:A translating ribosome is typically thought to follow the reading frame defined by the selected start codon. Using super-resolution ribosome profiling, here we report pervasive out-of-frame translation from the start codon. Unlike programmable frameshifting during elongation, start codon-associated ribosome frameshifting (SCARF) stems from the slippage of the initiating ribosome. Using a massively paralleled reporter assay, we uncovered sequence elements acting as SCARF enhancers or repressors, implying that start codon recognition is coupled with reading frame fidelity. This finding explains thousands of mass spectrometry spectra unannotated from human proteome. Mechanistically, we find that the eukaryotic initiation factor 5B (eIF5B) maintains the reading frame fidelity during the transition from initiation to elongation. Intriguingly, amino acid starvation induces SCARF by proteasomal degradation of eIF5B. The stress-induced SCARF products provide a degradative source to mitigate amino acid scarcity during starvation. Our findings illustrate the beneficial effect of divergent translation in nutrient stress adaptation.
Project description:During mRNA translation, ribosome dynamics at individual codons critically shape the quality and quantity of protein products. Long runs of consecutive codons are generally thought to impede elongation by depleting cognate tRNAs. However, in Huntington’s disease, ribosomes translate hundreds of consecutive CAG codons without catastrophic stalling. Here, we systematically profile ribosome behavior across repeats of all 20 amino acids encoded in the human genome. For proline and lysine repeats – commonly considered difficult to decode – we find that ribosomes accelerate after an initial phase of slow decoding, a phenomenon we term adaptive decoding. Remarkably, codon-specific decoding memory enables iterative translation of arginine repeats, generating internally expanded protein products. In contrast, acidic amino acid repeats trigger ribosomal bypassing and produce internally truncated proteins. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, decoding inertia acquired during repeat translation constraints frameshifting. Disrupting the decoding memory of CAG repeats by inserting proline codons is beneficial in reducing polyglutamine synthesis and aggregation. These findings uncover an adaptive dimension of ribosome decoding that contributes to the synthesis of physiological and pathological amino acid repeats.
Project description:In eukaryotes, the intrinsic mRNA stability is generally dictated by codon usage bias, the uneven preferences for synonymous codons, in a translation-dependent manner. However, the conserved mechanism underlining this phenomenon remains elusive. Hidden stop codons (HSCs), which are stop codons located in the +1 or -1 frame relative to canonical open reading frames (ORF), are sidespread across all genomes but have long been overlooked. We demonstrate that in both fungi and mammals, HSCs play an important role in regulating mRNA decay across the genome by immediately terminating out-of-frame translations promoted by nonoptimal codons, primarily through +1 ribosomal frameshifting. In the filamentous fungus Neurospora, partially deleting HSCs via synonymous substitutions in the clock gene frequency disrupts the circadian rhythm due to increased mRNA stability. Similarly, in human cells, impaired translation termination caused by rapid depletion of eRF1 leads to globally increased stability of mRNAs enriched with non-optimal codons and HSCs, which are in part degraded through the NMD pathway via UPF1. Given that from yeasts to humans the occurrence of HSCs is genome-widely associated with the presence of nonoptimal codons, these findings suggest that in eukaryotes, HSCs might coevolve with codon usage to modulate mRNA stabilities via immediately terminating different levels of ribosomal frameshifting events promoted by nonoptimal codons.