Av. Kochetov et al., Eukaryotic mRNAs encoding abundant and scarce proteins are statistically dissimilar in many structural features, FEBS LETTER, 440(3), 1998, pp. 351-355
It is well known that non-coding mRNA sequences are dissimilar in many stru
ctural features. For individual mRNAs correlations were found for some of t
hese features and their translational efficiency, However, no systematic st
atistical analysis was undertaken to relate protein abundance and structura
l characteristics of mRNA encoding the given protein. We have demonstrated
that structural and contextual features of eukaryotic mRNAs encoding high-
and low-abundant proteins differ in the 5' untranslated regions (UTR), Stat
istically, 5' UTRs of low-expression mRNAs are longer, their guanine plus c
ytosine content is higher, they have a less optimal context of the translat
ion initiation codons of the main open reading frames and contain more freq
uently upstream AUG than 5' UTRs of high-expression mRNAs, Apart from the d
ifferences in 5' UTRs, high-expression mRNAs contain stronger termination s
ignals. Structural features of low- and high-expression mRNAs are likely to
contribute to the yield of their protein products. (C) 1998 Federation of
European Biochemical Societies.