mRNA decay
Definition: mRNA decay is a mode of control of gene expression, added to transcriptional regulation.
Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay
Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is an mRNA surveillance pathway that ensures the rapid degradation of mRNAs containing premature translation termination codons (PTCs), thereby preventing the synthesis of truncated and potentially harmful proteins.
In addition, this pathway regulates the expression of approximately 10% of the transcriptome and is essential in mice.
Although NMD is conserved in eukaryotes, recent studies in several organisms have revealed that different mechanisms have evolved to discriminate natural from premature stop codons and to degrade the targeted mRNAs.
See also
nonsense-mediated mRNA decay
References
Gene silencing by microRNAs: contributions of translational repression and mRNA decay. Huntzinger E, Izaurralde E. Nat Rev Genet. 2011 Feb;12(2):99-110. PMID: #21245828#
Garneau NL, Wilusz J, Wilusz CJ. The highways and byways of mRNA decay. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2007 Feb;8(2):113-26. PMID: #17245413#
Conti E, Izaurralde E. Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay: molecular insights and mechanistic variations across species. Curr Opin Cell Biol. 2005 Jun;17(3):316-25. PMID: #15901503#
Lejeune F, Maquat LE. Mechanistic links between nonsense-mediated mRNA decay and pre-mRNA splicing in mammalian cells. Curr Opin Cell Biol. 2005 Jun;17(3):309-15. PMID: #15901502#