NONSENSE-MEDIATED MESSENGER-RNA DECAY IN XENOPUS OOCYTES AND EMBRYOS

Mutant mRNAs carrying a premature stop codon have a reduced half-life in the cells of many species, probably due to the presence of ''survei llance'' pathways, which selectively target such mRNAs for degradation . It is reported here that this phenomenon may also occur in Xenopus. In vitro-synthesised transcripts encoding a Xenopus POU-domain protein , XLPOU-60, are stable after injection into the oocyte and embryo. How ever, introduction of a premature stop codon into these transcripts re sults in their rapid degradation following injection. In contrast, mut ant transcripts with additional or deleted codons but retaining a corr ect reading frame are stable. These results suggest that RNA stability should be considered when designing control mRNAs for Xenopus injecti on experiments. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.