Is anti‐viral defence the evolutionary origin of mRNA turnover? (Comment on DOI 10.1002/bies.201600100)
نویسنده
چکیده
In this issue of BioEssays, Hamid and Makeyev explore an interesting new idea regarding the evolutionary origins of regulated mRNA turnover pathways [1]. One such pathway is nonsensemediated decay (NMD) that detects and targets for degradation a subset of mRNAs including transcripts with premature translation termination codons. The authors develop a model in which these pathways initially evolved to target viral RNAs for degradation. They further postulate that these pathways were later re-purposed to regulate the host cell’s gene expression. This hypothesis – that molecular mechanisms nowadays primarily involved in regulated mRNA decay have their origin in anti-viral defence – provides interesting new perspectives on host-pathogen coevolution and on molecular recognition of RNA. The hypothesis is supported by recent results that NMD not only regulates cellular transcripts but also viral RNAs [2, 3]. NMD recognizes unusual patterns of mRNA translation, particularly atypical positions of stop codons. This feature is shared by some viral mRNAsasa resultof thecompactgenome structure of many viruses and predisposes them to NMD [1–3]. Another example for regulated mRNA decay that also targets viral RNAs is a group of RNAbinding proteins containing Zn-fingers
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