Stop codon readthrough generates a new vitamin D receptor variant

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Dr. R. Dmitriev collaborated with Dr. G. Loughran, Prof. J. Atkins (School of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, UCC) and other colleagues from National Institutes of Health (USA), University of Tubingen (Germany), National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (Ireland) and MIT (USA), to understand the phenomenon of stop codon readthrough in vertebrates. The team found that human mRNA with stop codon motif UGA_CUAG displayed inefficient termination of translation of vitamin D receptor (VDR) in 6.7% cases, leading to translation of extended polypeptide product, in so-called 'readthrough' phenomenon. Interestingly, this longer variant of VDR, termed as VDRx also was functional but had reduced activity. The importance of this discovery is still to be understood.
The results of study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry can be found here.

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