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Expression of the translation termination factor eRF1 is autoregulated by translational readthrough and 3'UTR intron‐mediated NMD in Neurospora crassa
Author(s) -
Kurilla Anita,
Szőke Anita,
Auber Andor,
Káldi Krisztina,
Silhavy Dániel
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1002/1873-3468.13918
Subject(s) - neurospora crassa , nonsense mediated decay , stop codon , release factor , biology , untranslated region , messenger rna , translation (biology) , ribosome , microbiology and biotechnology , five prime untranslated region , intron , genetics , eukaryotic translation , termination factor , gene , rna , rna splicing , rna editing , mutant
Eukaryotic release factor 1 (eRF1) is a translation termination factor that binds to the ribosome at stop codons. The expression of eRF1 is strictly controlled, since its concentration defines termination efficiency and frequency of translational readthrough. Here, we show that eRF1 expression in Neurospora crassa is controlled by an autoregulatory circuit that depends on the specific 3'UTR structure of erf1 mRNA. The stop codon context of erf1 promotes readthrough that protects the mRNA from its 3'UTR‐induced nonsense‐mediated mRNA decay (NMD). High eRF1 concentration leads to inefficient readthrough, thereby allowing NMD‐mediated erf1 degradation. We propose that eRF1 expression is controlled by similar autoregulatory circuits in many fungi and seed plants and discuss the evolution of autoregulatory systems of different translation termination factors.