Fig 2.

Transcript degradation by NMD can lead to stabilization of truncated and alternatively spliced isoforms. During normal translation a full length protein is generated (left panel). A PTC normally triggers NMD, but if that transcript is stabilized via inhibition of NMD then a truncated protein may be generated, which may then serve as dominant negative or may function as a wild-type protein (middle panel). If an alternatively spliced isoform, e.g. due to a skipped exon, generates a PTC, in the absence of NMD this isoform may result in a protein with deletions or, if the alternatively spliced isoform results in a new reading frame, then a novel protein (right panel).