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The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder.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 elongation rates for both non-frameshifting and frameshifting sites, a single round of translation would take ~9 minutes. Accounting for the number of ribosomes per translation site and their relative fractions, we calculate a cell with 100 RNA would produce ~115 frameshifted protein per hour compared to ~2,220 canonical proteins. In other words, frameshifted proteins would account for ~5% of the total, in agreement with earlier measurements. Thus, the dynamics of the FSS sequence alone can be sufficient to account for the steady-state levels of frameshifted protein in living cells, without the need for additional regulatory mechanisms.