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Updated: Jul 18, 2025

Toeprinting Analysis of Translation Initiation Complex Formation on Mammalian mRNAs
Published on: May 10, 2018
Translation-coupled mRNA quality control mechanisms
Laura Monaghan1, Dasa Longman1, Javier F Cáceres1
1MRC Human Genetics Unit, Institute of Genetics and Cancer, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
None:
mRNA surveillance pathways are essential for accurate gene expression and to maintain translation homeostasis, ensuring the production of fully functional proteins. Future insights into mRNA quality control pathways will enable us to understand how cellular mRNA levels are controlled, how defective or unwanted mRNAs can be eliminated, and how dysregulation of these can contribute to human disease. Here we review translation-coupled mRNA quality control mechanisms, including the non-stop and no-go mRNA decay pathways, describing their mechanisms, shared trans-acting factors, and differences. We also describe advances in our understanding of the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway, highlighting recent mechanistic findings, the discovery of novel factors, as well as the role of NMD in cellular physiology and its impact on human disease.
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