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    <b>Welcome!</b>
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    <p>
  Cis-acting mRNA elements that program ribosomes to shift
  translational reading frame were first discovered in viruses. These
  programmed -1 ribosomal frameshift (-1 PRF) signals are composed of
  a heptameric "slippery site" followed by an mRNA pseudoknot
  secondary structure.
  <font size=-1><a href="#9_angstrom"><sup>1</sup></a></font>
    </p>

    <p>
 <a alt="Viral PRF example" title="A Viral PRF example" href="html/viral.png">Viruses</a>
 typically use -1 PRF as a genome condensation strategy;
 enabling them to encode multiple proteins from a single unaltered
 mRNA. Historically, because of their relative simplicity, many
 molecular regulatory elements have been first discovered in viruses:
 -1 PRF is no different.
    </p>

    <p>
 We developed a computational method to identify putative -1 PRF
 signals in eukaryotic genomic sequences. Subsets of these sequences
 were shown to stimulate significant -1 programmed frameshifting using
 dual-luciferase reporter constructs.
<font size=-1><a href="#db"><sup>2</sup></a></font>
    </p>

    <p>
 Analysis of these signals suggests that, after a frameshifting event,
 ribosomes would be directed to translate premature termination
 codons. These should promote mRNA destabilization via the
 nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway. We previously showed that
 a viral -1 PRF signal cloned in a similar context can function as an
 mRNA destabilizing element.
<font size=-1><a href="#cis_acting"><sup>3</sup></a></font>
 This suggests that regulation of  -1 PRF may be used to regulate cellular
 gene expression by controlling mRNA stability. In addition, ribosome
 stalling induced by strong mRNA structures can also promote mRNA
 degradation via 'No-go decay,' suggesting that our computational
 approach may be capable of identifying a class of mRNA destabilizing
 elements independent of -1 PRF.
    </p>

    <p>
  This online database is focused on cataloging programmed
  ribosomal frameshift signals (PRF) in eukaryotic genomes.
  Please search for a gene of interest or select one of the
  links above to get started.  Most of the sequence information from
  this database came from either the
   <a title="Go to the Yeast Genome project's homepage." href="http://yeastgenome.org" target="_blank">Yeast Genome Project</a>
  or the
   <a title="Go to the (now defunct) Mammalian Genome Collection." href="http://mgc.nci.nih.gov" target="_blank">Mammalian Gene Collection</a>.
    </p>
<hr>

 <ol>
  <a name="9_angstrom"></a>
  <li>Plant, E.P., Muldoon Jacobs, K.L., Harger, J.W.,
    Meskauskas, A., Jacobs,  J.L., Baxter, J.L., Petrov, A.N., Dinman, J.D. <strong>The
    9-&Aring; solution: How mRNA pseudoknots promote efficient programmed -1 ribosomal 
    frameshifting.</strong> 
    <a href="http://www.rnajournal.org/cgi/content/abstract/9/2/168" target="_blank">
      RNA (9), 168-174 (2003).
    </a>
  </li>

  <a name="db"></a>
  <li>
    Jacobs JL, Belew AT,&nbsp;Rakauskaite R, Dinman
    JD. <strong>Identification of functional, endogenous programmed -1
    ribosomal frameshift signals in the genome of Saccharomyces
    cerevisiae </strong>
    <a href="http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/gkl1033v1?ijkey=x0ZyxmvIlvTV2Yp&amp;keytype=ref">
NAR 2006 Dec7
    </a>
  </li>

  <a name="cis_acting"></a>
  <li>
    Plant EP, Wang P, Jacobs JL and Dinman JD. <strong>A programmed
    &ndash;1 ribosomal frameshift signal can function as a cis-acting
    mRNA destabilizing element.</strong>
    <a href="http://nar.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/32/2/784">NAR (32), 784-790 (2004).
    </a>
  </li>
 </ol>
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