NMD

Nonsense-mediatedmRNAdecay. A process that appears to be a quality control mechanism that eliminates nonsense transcripts such as mRNAs with premature termination codons. First discovered in yeast, this surveillance mechanism is ubiquitous among eukaryotes. Coupled to mRNA splicing, this pathway results in the degradation of aberrant mRNAs. There is evidence that NMD is involved in thePTGS-related degradation of the mRNA, because someC. elegansgenes are required for bothRNAiand NMD. The two mechanisms are different, however, because NMD is dependent on translation of the mRNA, whereas the decrease in mRNA observed in RNAi and related PTGS phenomena is not prevented by inhibitors of translation. Also, the mRNA degradation associated with NMD begins with de-capping followed by 5' to 3' exonuclease degradation, whereas the degradation associated with PTGS appears to begin with endonucleotidic cleavage.

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