Conti Elena, Izaurralde Elisa
European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany.
Curr Opin Cell Biol. 2005 Jun;17(3):316-25. doi: 10.1016/j.ceb.2005.04.005.
Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is an mRNA surveillance pathway that ensures the rapid degradation of mRNAs containing premature translation termination codons (PTCs), thereby preventing the synthesis of truncated and potentially harmful proteins. In addition, this pathway regulates the expression of approximately 10% of the transcriptome and is essential in mice. Although NMD is conserved in eukaryotes, recent studies in several organisms have revealed that different mechanisms have evolved to discriminate natural from premature stop codons and to degrade the targeted mRNAs. With the elucidation of the first crystal structures of components of the NMD machinery, the way is paved towards a molecular understanding of the protein interaction network underlying this process.
无义介导的mRNA降解（NMD）是一种mRNA监测途径，可确保快速降解含有提前翻译终止密码子（PTC）的mRNA，从而防止截短的和潜在有害蛋白质的合成。此外，该途径调节约10%的转录组的表达，并且在小鼠中是必不可少的。尽管NMD在真核生物中是保守的，但最近在几种生物中的研究表明，已经进化出不同的机制来区分天然终止密码子和提前终止密码子，并降解靶向的mRNA。随着NMD机制组分的首个晶体结构的阐明，为从分子层面理解这一过程背后的蛋白质相互作用网络铺平了道路。
