Conservation of the upstream augs and orfs in the human and mouse 5' untranslated region of the mrnas for protein tyrosine phosphatases

Abstract

The human and mouse RefSec database of mRNAs for protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) was searched. The positions of the uAUG and uORF within the 5'untranslated region (5'UTR) were compared. It was shown that the uAUGs in all PTPs are conserved very strongly, suggesting the presence of a mechanism for translation down regulation. The uORFs in the receptor type PTPs, in contrast to the non-transmembrane PTPs, exhibit unusually high degree of evolutionary conservation. It is likely that in these PTPs translation control by elements present in the 5'UTR will be uncovered. © 2009 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.