Nucleic Acids Research, Vol 27, Issue 17 3417-3423, Copyright © 1999 by Oxford University Press
AC Verrotti, C Wreden and S Strickland
During early metazoan development, certain maternal mRNAs are
translationally activated by elongation of their poly(A) tails. Bicoid (
bcd ) mRNA is a Drosophila maternal mRNA that is translationally activated
by cytoplasmic polyadenylation during the first hour after egg deposition.
The sequences necessary and sufficient to promote its poly(A) elongation,
and hence translation, are contained within its 3'- untranslated region
(UTR). The mechanism by which poly(A) elongation at the 3'-end affects
translational initiation at the 5'-end remains unknown. To investigate this
question, we have analyzed a bicoid mRNA whose 5'-UTR contains a short
antisense sequence directed against a portion of the coding region. This
mutated RNA is efficiently translated in vitro. After injection into
Drosophila embryos, this RNA is stable and polyadenylated, but
inefficiently translated. These experiments show that structural
modification of the 5'-end of an mRNA can perturb the translational
activation normally conferred by polyadenylation in vivo.
ARTICLES
Dissociation of mRNA cytoplasmic polyadenylation from translational activation by structural modification of the 5'-UTR
Department of Pharmacology, University Medical Center at Stony Brook, NY 11794-8651, USA. verro001@mercutio.mc.duke.edu
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