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Molecular biology

Antibiotic re-frames decoding

Nature volume 503, pages 478–479 (2013)Cite this article

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Ketolide antibiotics have been found to induce a ribosomal frameshift — a change in the way that RNA is translated — in bacteria. This promotes the expression of a gene for antibiotic resistance, and may have broader implications.

Messenger RNAs encode proteins using a sequence of codons: triplets of nucleotides that specify different amino acids. But for a codon sequence to be interpreted, the right reading frame must be set at the start of decoding — translation must begin at the first nucleotide of a codon, rather than at the second or third. Switching from the correct frame to one of the two alternatives occurs rarely, except at specific places within coding sequences where such frameshifting is programmed. Writing in Molecular Cell, Gupta et al.1 report the exciting finding that antibiotics known as ketolides induce frameshifting. This happens during the expression of one of the short coding sequences that often precede and regulate the expression of genes that encode functional proteins, and is a previously unknown means for such regulation.

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Figure 1: Antibiotic-induced frameshifting.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. John F. Atkins and Pavel V. Baranov are in the School of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.,

    John F. Atkins & Pavel V. Baranov

  2. J.F.A. is also in the Department of Human Genetics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA.,

    John F. Atkins

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  1. John F. Atkins
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  2. Pavel V. Baranov
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Correspondence to John F. Atkins or Pavel V. Baranov.

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Atkins, J., Baranov, P. Antibiotic re-frames decoding. Nature 503, 478–479 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/503478a

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