A novel function for alternative polyadenylation as a rescue pathway from NMD surveillance - PubMed (original) (raw)

. 2007 Feb 9;353(2):487-92.

doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2006.12.052. Epub 2006 Dec 15.

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A novel function for alternative polyadenylation as a rescue pathway from NMD surveillance

Roi Gilat et al. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2007.

Abstract

Premature termination codon (PTC) containing transcripts are subjected to a rapid degradation via nonsense-mediated decay (NMD) surveillance mechanism. By and large degradation is desired in order to prevent the translation of truncated, most likely deleterious, protein. Nevertheless, several dissimilar NMD-rescue events, capable of turning NMD-candidates into NMD-immune, are described. Yet, the extent and nature of this phenomenon is unknown. We screened the human genome for NMD-candidates transcripts. Among which we sub-grouped "pseudo-NMD" genes, which all their annotated transcripts contain PTCs, and therefore allegedly are transcribed but never translated. Here we show that alternative polyadenylation can rescue prematurely terminated transcripts, by truncating the pre-mRNA so that the PTC is now "legally" positioned. ESTs-based analysis shows that NMD-rescued genes are indeed expressed in human tissues. Furthermore, predicted NMD-rescue variants' existence is computationally verified. Hence, we suggest a novel role for the exon-truncated class of alternative polyadenylation as an NMD-rescue regulatory mechanism.

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