A slippery sequence is a small section of codon nucleotide sequences (usually UUUAAAC) that controls the rate and chance of ribosomal frameshifting. A slippery sequence causes a faster ribosomal transfer which in turn can cause the reading ribosome to "slip." This allows a tRNA to shift by 1 base (−1) after it has paired with its anticodon, changing the reading frame. A −1 frameshift triggered by such a sequence is a programmed −1 ribosomal frameshift. It is followed by a spacer region, and an RNA secondary structure. Such sequences are common in virus polyproteins. The frameshift occurs due to wobble pairing. The Gibbs free energy of secondary structures downstream give a hint at how often frameshift happens. Tension on the mRNA molecule also plays a role. A list of slippery sequences found in animal viruses is available from Huang et al. Slippery sequences that cause a 2-base slip (−2 frameshift) have been constructed out of the HIV UUUUUUA sequence.
See also Nucleic acid tertiary structure Open reading frame Ribosomal frameshifting Translational frameshift Transposable element
References
External links Pseudobase Recode Frameshifting,+Ribosomal at the U.S. National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) Wise2 - aligns a protein against a DNA sequence allowing frameshifts and introns FastY - compare a DNA sequence to a protein sequence database, allowing gaps and frameshifts Path Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine - tool that compares two frameshift proteins (back-translation principle) Recode2 - Database of recoded genes, including those that require programmed Translational frameshift.
Page for Coronavirus frameshifting stimulation element at Rfam