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.

Many inferences have been made about the mechanism of recoding signal action, especially 3 mRNA structural stimulators where resistance to unwinding (511), is highly relevant (108, 568) . Though mostly considered as tension in mRNA, it can alternatively be considered as the transitory impediment to standard translocation resulting in tension for the anticodon: codon pairing of ribosome bound tRNA. Spacer length is relevant to this. With the HIV frameshift cassette, when the number of nts between the shift site is reduced, the ratio of −2 to −1 frameshifting increases (98) . While a mammalian antizyme 1 frameshifting cassette yields +1 frameshifting in mammalian cells (264) and mostly +1 in the fission yeast S. pombe (569) , it yields predominately −2 frameshifting in budding yeast S. cerevisiae, except when the 3 pseudoknot is moved 3 nts further 3 when the frameshifting is 50% −2 and 50% +1 (513) .