UPF1 silenced cellular model systems for screening of read-through agents active on β⁰39 thalassemia point mutation

Nonsense mutations promote premature translational termination, introducing stop codons within the coding region of mRNAs and causing inherited diseases, including thalassemia. For instance, in β⁰39 thalassemia the CAG (glutamine) codon is mutated to the UAG stop codon, leading to premature translation termination and to mRNA destabilization through the well described NMD (nonsense-mediated mRNA decay). In order to develop an approach facilitating translation and, therefore, protection from NMD, ribosomal read-through molecules, such as aminoglycoside antibiotics, have been tested on mRNAs carrying premature stop codons. These findings have introduced new hopes for the development of a pharmacological approach to the β⁰39 thalassemia therapy. While several strategies, designed to enhance translational read-through, have been reported to inhibit NMD efficiency concomitantly, experimental tools for systematic analysis of mammalian NMD inhibition by translational read-through are lacking.

We developed a human cellular model of the β⁰39 thalassemia mutation with UPF-1 suppressed and showing a partial NMD suppression.

This novel cellular model could be used for the screening of molecules exhibiting preferential read-through activity allowing a great rescue of the mutated transcripts.