Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
EMBO J. 2020 Sep 1;39(17):e105959. doi: 10.15252/embj.2020105959. Epub 2020 Aug 3.
Eukaryotic mRNAs were long thought to only translate a single protein product, but it is now recognized that many mRNAs can also encode small open reading frames (ORFs). In this issue of The EMBO Journal, Wu et al characterized small ORFs in the 3' untranslated regions (3' UTRs) of human and zebrafish mRNAs and found that many are indeed translated. The peptides encoded by these downstream ORFs (dORFs) are often poorly conserved across evolution, but many dORFs are nonetheless functional, as the act of their translation can promote translation of the canonical ORF.
真核生物的 mRNA 长期以来被认为只能翻译出单一的蛋白质产物，但现在人们已经认识到，许多 mRNA 也可以编码小的开放阅读框 (ORF)。在本期《EMBO 杂志》上，Wu 等人对人类和斑马鱼 mRNA 的 3'非翻译区 (3'UTR) 中的小 ORF 进行了描述，结果发现许多 ORF 确实被翻译了。这些下游 ORF (dORF) 编码的肽在进化上通常没有很好的保守性，但许多 dORF 仍然具有功能，因为它们的翻译行为可以促进典型 ORF 的翻译。
