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Updated: Oct 9, 2025

Genome-wide Quantification of Translation in Budding Yeast by Ribosome Profiling
Published on: December 21, 2017
Ribosome Fate during Decoding of UGA-Sec Codons
Paul R Copeland1, Michael T Howard2
1Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
Abstract:
Decoding of genetic information into polypeptides occurs during translation, generally following the codon assignment rules of the organism's genetic code. However, recoding signals in certain mRNAs can overwrite the normal rules of translation. An exquisite example of this occurs during translation of selenoprotein mRNAs, wherein UGA codons are reassigned to encode for the 21st proteogenic amino acid, selenocysteine. In this review, we will examine what is known about the mechanisms of UGA recoding and discuss the fate of ribosomes that fail to incorporate selenocysteine.
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