Live-cell single RNA imaging reveals bursts of translational frameshifting

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

The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. . https://doi.org/10.1101/478040 doi: bioRxiv preprint A best-fit bursty model simulation of multiple non-frameshifting (top four labeled 'nonFS Spots') and frameshifting (bottom four labeled 'FS Spots') translation sites encoding the HA multi-frame tag. In the simulation, harringtonine is added after 1000 s and the simulation continues for an additional 2000 s. Individual ribosomes (gray dots) are shown moving along the reporters (gray lines), with green, blue, and cyan squares marking the positions of FLAG, SunTag, and HA epitopes, respectively. As the ribosomes move along the repeat epitopes, the translated nascent chains appear as green (FLAG-tagged nascent chains), blue (Sun-tagged nascent chains), and cyan (HA-tagged nascent chains) dots that increase in size as more epitopes are translated. When the RNA is in the non-frameshifting state, the FSS is labeled 'FSS(OF)' in green; when the RNA is in the frameshifting state, the FSS is labeled 'FSS(-1F)' in blue. The simulated time is shown to the right of each reporter.