Atkinson J, Dodge M, Gallant J
Department of Genetics, University of Washington, Seattle 98195-7360, USA.
Mol Microbiol. 1997 Nov;26(4):747-53. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2958.1997.6101959.x.
We have examined the effect of a downstream secondary structure (the stem-loop sequence found downstream on the MMTV gag-pro frameshift site) on frameshifting at a bacterial shifty site (U UUC AUA) that responds strongly to a isoleucine-tRNA limitation. Our findings are as follows: (i) the downstream stem-loop has little effect on frameshifting in growing, unstarved cells; (ii) the stem-loop increases the frameshifting effect of isoleucine-tRNA limitation about fourfold, and this synergism is maximal with a distance of 5-9 nucleotides between the 'hungry' AUA codon and the stem-loop; and (iii) a stem-loop of different sequence at the same position has the same effect.
