Stop-Stall Mechanism May Limit Number of Proteins Synthesized from mRNA

A messenger RNA (mRNA) does more than provide ribosomes a template for creating a sequence of amino acids. It also conveys regulatory information, including so-called stop codons. But just as cars sometimes drive through stop signals on the road, ribosomes sometimes “read through” an mRNA’s stop codon, staying attached to the mRNA even though they have strayed into the mRNA’s 3′ noncoding region. Missing a stop may sound like pure dysfunction, but it may, according