Ribosomal frameshifting and transcriptional slippage: From genetic steganography and cryptography to adventitious use

Atkins, John F.; Loughran, Gary; Bhatt, Pramod R.; Firth, Andrew E.; Baranov, Pavel V.

Agmatine has long been known to affect antizyme frameshifting (305) and antizyme influences uptake of the nitric oxide synthase inhibitor, agmatine, that has neurological significance (306) . The influence of antizymes, both by direct binding and indirectly, on other pathways and the potential role of factors other than polyamines on antizyme frameshifting, is the subject of several reports and of active investigation (291, 307, 308) . The potential for polyamine levels to have specific effects on other cases of frameshifting also needs to be kept in mind especially as a certain combination of the levels of putrescine and spermidine was shown to influence the S. cerevisiae mobile element Ty1 frameshifting and so the rate of its retrotransposition (309) . Because of the up-regulation of polyamine synthesis in important disease, much work is being devoted to identifying inhibitors. From a frameshifting perspective, the distinction between the very different situations with S. cerevisiae antizyme and mammalian antizyme 3 and the contrasts between each of them and the other types of antizyme frameshifting, is intriguing even with our current limited knowledge.