RESUMO
Protein synthesis is a complex multistep process involving many factors that need to interact in a coordinated manner to properly translate the messenger RNA. As translating ribosomes cannot be synchronized over many elongation cycles, single-molecule studies have been introduced to bring a deeper understanding of prokaryotic translation dynamics. Extending this approach to eukaryotic translation is very appealing, but initiation and specific labeling of the ribosomes are much more complicated. Here, we use a noncanonical translation initiation based on internal ribosome entry sites (IRES), and we monitor the passage of individual, unmodified mammalian ribosomes at specific fluorescent milestones along mRNA. We explore initiation by two types of IRES, the intergenic IRES of cricket paralysis virus (CrPV) and the hepatitis C (HCV) IRES, and show that they both strongly limit the rate of the first elongation steps compared to the following ones, suggesting that those first elongation cycles do not correspond to a canonical elongation. This new system opens the possibility of studying both IRES-mediated initiation and elongation kinetics of eukaryotic translation and will undoubtedly be a valuable tool to investigate the role of translation machinery modifications in human diseases.
Assuntos
Dicistroviridae/genética , Dicistroviridae/metabolismo , Hepacivirus/genética , Hepacivirus/metabolismo , Sítios Internos de Entrada Ribossomal , Biossíntese de Proteínas , Animais , Gryllidae/virologia , Humanos , Técnicas In Vitro , Cinética , Microscopia de Fluorescência , Modelos Biológicos , Elongação Traducional da Cadeia Peptídica , RNA Mensageiro/genética , RNA Viral/genética , Coelhos , Ribossomos/metabolismo , Imagem Individual de MoléculaRESUMO
We present a new method for calibrating an optical-tweezer setup that does not depend on input parameters and is less affected by systematic errors like drift of the setup. It is based on an inference approach that uses Bayesian probability to infer the diffusion coefficient and the potential felt by a bead trapped in an optical or magnetic trap. It exploits a much larger amount of the information stored in the recorded bead trajectory than standard calibration approaches. We demonstrate that this method outperforms the equipartition method and the power-spectrum method in input information required (bead radius and trajectory length) and in output accuracy.