Translation is enhanced after silent nucleotide substitutions in A+T- rich sequences of the coding region of CD46 cDNA.

Specific sequences in the coding region of CD46 (membrane cofactor protein) transcripts have been shown to have a marked effect on translation. Two A+T-rich regions of CD46 cDNA were altered by mutation without changing the CD46 amino acid sequence (silent nucleotide substitution). In one region, the A+T content was reduced from 78% to 55% and in the other a putative polyadenylation addition sequence was disrupted. In each example, mutated sequences transfected into COS-7 cells produced significantly more soluble or cell surface protein (up to a 20-fold increase) than wild-type sequences. The amount of cellular plasmid DNA and CD46 mRNA was not increased, suggesting that the effect was not due to increased transfection efficiency, or transcript synthesis or stability. Biosynthetically labelled transfected cells showed an increase in translation rate but cell-free in vitro translation studies demonstrated that wild-type and mutated transcripts were translated with similar efficiency. The data show that translation of CD46 is affected by specific mRNA coding sequences, 400-540 bases from the initiation codon, and suggest that these sequences require the structural integrity of the cell to exert their effect.