Figure 1.

Schemes of the ribosome complexes and the FIRMS assay. (a) Ribosome complexes. Starting from the initiation complex, the pretranslocation complex was produced, followed by three consecutive steps of translocation going through the GA₇G motif. (b) The FIRMS scheme of using different magnetically labeled DNAs for probing different translocation step. In each step, the formation of 12-, 13-, and 14-bp DNA-mRNA duplexes indicate normal translocation, “–1” frameshifting, and “–2” frameshifting, respectively. (c) Scheme of using probe DNAs with a single nt difference to confirm the reading frame.