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The effect of the length of the 3′‐untranslated region on expression in plants
Author(s) -
Tanguay Robert L.,
Gallie Daniel R.
Publication year - 1996
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 - 10.1016/0014-5793(96)00970-2
Subject(s) - untranslated region , messenger rna , three prime untranslated region , five prime untranslated region , translation (biology) , luciferase , biology , start codon , translational efficiency , microbiology and biotechnology , chemistry , transfection , genetics , gene
The effect of increasing the length of the 3′‐untranslated region (UTR) on expression of luciferase mRNA was examined in transiently transfected carrot protoplasts. The effect of the 3′‐UTR on both poly(A) − and poly(A) + mRNA was examined. A nested set of constructs in which the 3′‐UTR increased from 4 to 104 bases was generated by the introduction and reiteration of a 20 base sequence downstream of the luc stop codon. For poly(A) − mRNA, there was a consistent increase in expression when the length of the 3′‐UTR was increased from 4 to 104 bases. For poly(A) + mRNA, expression increased 18‐fold when the length of the 3′‐UTR was increased from 7 to 27 bases. Further increases in the length of the 3′‐UTR did not affect expression. The increase in expression was largely due to an increase in translational efficiency. These data suggest that the length of the 3′‐UTR plays an important role in determining the extent to which a poly(A) tall can stimulate the translation of an mRNA.