Log on / register
BioMed Central home | Journals A-Z | Feedback | Support | My details
Highly AccessMinireview

Making the jump: new insights into the mechanism of trans-translation

Jacek Wower1, Iwona K Wower1 and Christian Zwieb2 email

1Department of Animal Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA.

2Department of Molecular Biology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, 11937 US Highway 271, Tyler, TX 75708, USA.

author email corresponding author email

Journal of Biology 2008, 7:17doi:10.1186/jbiol78

Published: 30 June 2008

Abstract

The transfer-messenger ribonucleoprotein (tmRNP), which is composed of RNA and a small protein, small protein B (SmpB), recycles ribosomes that are stalled on broken mRNAs lacking stop codons and tags the partially translated proteins for degradation. Although it is not yet understood how the ribosome gets from the 3' end of the truncated message onto the messenger portion of the tmRNA to add the tag, a recent study in BMC Biology has shed some light on this astonishing feat.


© 1999-2009 BioMed Central Ltd unless otherwise stated. Part of Springer Science+Business Media.