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. 1989 Aug 25;17(16):6485–6497. doi: 10.1093/nar/17.16.6485

Efficient initiation of mammalian mRNA translation at a CUG codon.

M C Dasso 1, R J Jackson 1
PMCID: PMC318343  PMID: 2780285

Abstract

Nucleotide substitutions were made at the initiation codon of an influenza virus NS cDNA clone in a vector carrying the bacteriophage T7 promoter. When capped mRNA transcripts of these constructs were translated in the rabbit reticulocyte lysate, a change in the initiation codon from...AUAAUGG...to...AUACUGG...reduced the in vitro translational efficiency by only 50-60%, and resulted in only a small increase in the yield of short products presumed to be initiated at downstream sites. Synthesis of the full-length product was initiated exclusively at the mutated codon, with negligible use either of in-frame upstream CUG or GUG codons, or of an in-frame downstream GUG codon. We conclude that CUG has the potential to function as an efficient initiation codon in mammalian systems, at least in certain contexts.

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Selected References

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