期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:1998
卷号:95
期号:15
页码:8721-8726
DOI:10.1073/pnas.95.15.8721
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:The nonsense-mediated mRNA decay pathway functions to degrade aberrant mRNAs that contain premature translation termination codons. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the Upf1, Upf2, and Upf3 proteins have been identified as trans-acting factors involved in this pathway. Recent results have demonstrated that the Upf proteins may also be involved in maintaining the fidelity of several aspects of the translation process. Certain mutations in the UPF1 gene have been shown to affect the efficiency of translation termination at nonsense codons and/or the process of programmed -1 ribosomal frameshifting used by viruses to control their gene expression. Alteration of programmed frameshift efficiencies can affect virus assembly leading to reduced viral titers or elimination of the virus. Here we present evidence that the Upf3 protein also functions to regulate programmed -1 frameshift efficiency. A upf3-{Delta} strain demonstrates increased sensitivity to the antibiotic paromomycin and increased programmed -1 ribosomal frameshift efficiency resulting in loss of the M1 virus. Based on these observations, we hypothesize that the Upf proteins are part of a surveillance complex that functions to monitor translational fidelity and mRNA turnover.