Scientists
at the University of Illinois at Chicago have developed a
way
to identify the beginning of every gene -- known as a translation start site or
a start codon -- in bacterial cell DNA with a single experiment and, through
this method, they have shown that an individual gene is capable of coding for
more than one protein.
Their
method of identifying gene start sites relies on a common prescription drug
called retapamulin, a topical antibiotic. Retapamulin, they showed for the
first time, works by causing the ribosome, which reads genetic code, to become
stalled at these start sites, inhibiting translation, a key part of the process
by which the genetic code in DNA is used to create proteins.
UIC's
Alexander Mankin and Nora Vázquez-Laslop led the research, which looked at E. coli cells in response to retapamulin
in in vitro and in vivo experiments. The researchers found more than 100 E. coli genes, out of around 4,000, that
could initiate protein synthesis at more than one site.
For
further details, see:
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