Premium
Molecular mechanisms of mRNA degradation
Author(s) -
Conti Elena,
Bono Fulvia,
Glavan Filip,
Lorentzen Esben
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.22.1_supplement.247.3
Subject(s) - nonsense mediated decay , rna splicing , messenger rna , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , translation (biology) , alternative splicing , p bodies , exon , rna binding protein , precursor mrna , rna , chemistry , genetics , gene
Eukaryotes have evolved quality‐control mechanisms that allow cells to remove defective messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Aberrant mRNA with premature stop codons (PTCs) are recognized and degraded by a process known as nonsense‐mediated mRNA decay (NMD). The NMD pathway is conserved from lower to higher eukaryotes. In humans, the recognition of a PTC‐containing mRNA depends on both splicing and translation. In the nucleus, a complex of proteins known as the exon junction complex (EJC) is deposited on mRNA upon splicing and stays stably bound until the nucleic acid is exported to the cytoplasm. Here, the crosstalk between a ribosome stalled at a PTC and a downstream EJC elicits a cascade of interactions that ultimately lead to the recruitment of ribonucleases and mRNA degradation. The talk will focus on our current understanding of the molecular mechanisms of NMD as elucidated by structural biology.