Live-cell single RNA imaging reveals bursts of translational frameshifting

Kenneth Lyon; Luis U. Aguilera; Tatsuya Morisaki; Brian Munsky; Timothy J. Stasevich

In contrast to constitutive frameshifting on any RNA, our data indicate that frameshifting occurs in bursts on a subset of RNA. Bursty expression has been demonstrated by others, both at single transcription sites as well as at translation sites in bacteria (Lionnet and Singer, 2012) and eukaryotes (Wu et al., 2016) . The origin of frameshifting bursts is difficult to pinpoint. It is tempting to speculate that there is a unique structure the RNA takes that enhances frameshifting, particularly given the distinct pause times in our best-fit model. According to our observations, multi-RNA translation factories appear to be more susceptible to frameshift bursts. Such factories have been previously observed (Morisaki et al., 2016; Pichon et al., 2016) . Local concentration of translation factors is higher within factories, so translation kinetics are enhanced (Pichon et al., All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.