Methylated MRNA nucleotides as regulators for ribosomal translation

Abstract

Methylated RNA nucleotides were recently discovered to be highly abundant in RNAs. The effects of these methylations were mainly attributed to altered mRNA stabilities, protein-binding affinities, or RNA structures. The direct impact of RNA modifications on the performance of the ribosome has not been investigated so far. In this chapter, we describe an approach that allows introducing RNA modifications site-specifically into coding sequences of mRNAs and determining their effect on the translation machinery in a well-defined bacterial in vitro system.