Secondary structures and starvation-induced frameshifting

We have examined the effect of a downstream secondary structure (the stem-loop sequence found downstream on the MMTV gag-pro frameshift site) on frameshifting at a bacterial shifty site (U UUC AUA) that responds strongly to a isoleucine-tRNA limitation. Our findings are as follows: (i) the downstream stem-loop has little effect on frameshifting in growing, unstarved cells; (ii) the stem-loop increases the frameshifting effect of isoleucine-tRNA limitation about fourfold, and this synergism is maximal with a distance of 5-9 nucleotides between the 'hungry' AUA codon and the stem-loop; and (iii) a stem-loop of different sequence at the same position has the same effect.