Oxygen and glucose deprivation induces widespread alterations in mRNA translation within 20 minutes

Background: Oxygen and glucose metabolism play pivotal roles in many (patho) physiological conditions. In particular, oxygen and glucose deprivation (OGD) during ischemia and stroke results in extensive tissue injury and cell death. Results: Using time-resolved ribosome profiling, we assess gene expression levels in a neural cell line, PC12, during the first hour of OGD. The most substantial alterations are seen to occur within the first 20 minutes of OGD. While transcription of only 100 genes is significantly altered during one hour of OGD, the translation response affects approximately 3,000 genes. This response involves reprogramming of initiation and elongation rates, as well as the stringency of start codon recognition. Genes involved in oxidative phosphorylation are most affected. Detailed analysis of ribosome profiles reveals salient alterations of ribosome densities on individual mRNAs. The mRNA-specific alterations include increased translation of upstream open reading frames, site-specific ribosome pauses, and production of alternative protein isoforms with amino-terminal extensions. Detailed analysis of ribosomal profiles also reveals six mRNAs with translated ORFs occurring downstream of annotated coding regions and two examples of dual coding mRNAs, where two protein products are translated from the same long segment of mRNA, but in two different frames. Conclusions: These findings uncover novel regulatory mechanisms of translational response to OGD in mammalian cells that are different from the classical pathways such as hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) signaling, while also revealing sophisticated organization of protein coding information in certain genes

Translation initiation downstream from annotated start codons in human mRNAs coevolves with the Kozak context

Eukaryotic translation initiation involves preinitiation ribosomal complex 5′ -to-3′ directional probing of mRNA for codons suitable for starting protein synthesis. The recognition of codons as starts depends on the codon identity and on its immediate nucleotide context known as Kozak context. When the context is weak (i.e., nonoptimal), leaky scanning takes place during which a fraction of ribosomes continues the mRNA probing. We explored the relationship between the context of AUG codons annotated as starts of protein-coding sequences and the next AUG codon occurrence. We found that AUG codons downstream from weak starts occur in the same frame more frequently than downstream from strong starts. We suggest that evolutionary selection on in-frame AUGs downstream from weak start codons is driven by the advantage of the reduction of wasteful out-of-frame product synthesis and also by the advantage of producing multiple proteoforms from certain mRNAs. We confirmed translation initiation downstream from weak start codons using ribosome profiling data. We also tested translation of alternative start codons in 10 specific human genes using reporter constructs. In all tested cases, initiation at downstream start codons was more productive than at the annotated ones. In most cases, optimization of Kozak context did not completely abolish downstream initiation, and in the specific example of CMPK1 mRNA, the optimized start remained unproductive. Collectively, our work reveals previously uncharacterized forces shaping the evolution of protein-coding genes and points to the plurality of translation initiation and the existence of sequence features influencing start codon selection, other than Kozak context.Russian Science Foundation (RSF) 20-14-00121Science Foundation Ireland 210692/Z/18/ZScience Foundation Ireland 12/RC/2276_P2Erasmus+ ProgrammePlan Propio de Investigacion 2019 de la Universidad de GranadaMinistry of Economy of Spain DPI2017-84439-REuropean Union (EU) DPI2017-84439-

AMD1 mRNA employs ribosome stalling as a mechanism for molecular memory formation.

In addition to acting as template for protein synthesis, messenger RNA (mRNA) often contains sensory sequence elements that regulate this process1,2. Here we report a new mechanism that limits the number of complete protein molecules that can be synthesized from a single mRNA molecule of the human AMD1 gene encoding adenosylmethionine decarboxylase 1 (AdoMetDC). A small proportion of ribosomes translating AMD1 mRNA stochastically read through the stop codon of the main coding region. These readthrough ribosomes then stall close to the next in-frame stop codon, eventually forming a ribosome queue, the length of which is proportional to the number of AdoMetDC molecules that were synthesized from the same AMD1 mRNA. Once the entire spacer region between the two stop codons is filled with queueing ribosomes, the queue impinges upon the main AMD1 coding region halting its translation. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that this mechanism is highly conserved in vertebrates and existed in their common ancestor. We propose that this mechanism is used to count and limit the number of protein molecules that can be synthesized from a single mRNA template. It could serve to safeguard from dysregulated translation that may occur owing to errors in transcription or mRNA damage

Translation initiation downstream from annotated start codons in human mRNAs coevolves with the Kozak context

Eukaryotic translation initiation involves preinitiation ribosomal complex 5'-to-3' directional probing of mRNA for codons suitable for starting protein synthesis. The recognition of codons as starts depends on the codon identity and on its immediate nucleotide context known as Kozak context. When the context is weak (i.e., nonoptimal), leaky scanning takes place during which a fraction of ribosomes continues the mRNA probing. We explored the relationship between the context of AUG codons annotated as starts of protein-coding sequences and the next AUG codon occurrence. We found that AUG codons downstream from weak starts occur in the same frame more frequently than downstream from strong starts. We suggest that evolutionary selection on in-frame AUGs downstream from weak start codons is driven by the advantage of the reduction of wasteful out-of-frame product synthesis and also by the advantage of producing multiple proteoforms from certain mRNAs. We confirmed translation initiation downstream from weak start codons using ribosome profiling data. We also tested translation of alternative start codons in 10 specific human genes using reporter constructs. In all tested cases, initiation at downstream start codons was more productive than at the annotated ones. In most cases, optimization of Kozak context did not completely abolish downstream initiation, and in the specific example of CMPK1 mRNA, the optimized start remained unproductive. Collectively, our work reveals previously uncharacterized forces shaping the evolution of protein-coding genes and points to the plurality of translation initiation and the existence of sequence features influencing start codon selection, other than Kozak context