KnotInFrame: prediction of -1 ribosomal frameshift events

Theis, Corinna; Reeder, Jens; Giegerich, Robert

In the middle of the last century, George Beadle and Edward Tatum (1) proposed the 'one gene-one enzyme' theory, stating that one gene holds the genetic information of one enzyme, performing one enzymatic reaction. It was later changed to 'one gene-one polyprotein' to account for the discovery of polyproteins. However, today there are several cases which violate this assumption. By alternative splicing several protein variants are made by selecting different sets of exons from one single gene. With trans-splicing, proteins are synthesized from exons of different genes (2) . Another way of enhancing the information content of an mRNA are translational recoding events. With codon hopping (bypassing) (3), the ribosome skips over a gap in the open reading frame (ORF) and resumes translation at a downstream codon. In procaryotes, UGA codons followed by a characteristic stemloop structure are redefined from stop codons to insertion of selenocystein (4) .