PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - John T. Gray TI - The Reading Frame Surveillance Hypothesis AID - 10.1101/071985 DP - 2017 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 071985 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/26/071985.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/26/071985.full AB - RFSReading Frame SurveillanceRdRPRNA-dependent RNA PolymerasefrRNAsFraming RNAsLSULarge SubunitSSUSmall SubunittRFTransfer RNA derived FragmentntnucleotideAbstract An alternative model for protein translation is presented wherein ribosomes utilize a complementary RNA copy of protein coding sequences to monitor the progress of messenger RNAs during their translation to reduce the frequency of frameshifting errors. The synthesis of this ‘framing RNA’ is postulated to be catalyzed by the small subunit of the ribosome, in the decoding center, by excising and concatemerizing tRNA anticodons bound to each codon of the mRNA template. Various components of the model are supported by previous observations of tRNA mutants that impact ribosomal frameshifting, unique globin-coding RNAs in developing erythroblasts, and the epigenetic, intergenerational transfer of phenotypic traits via mammalian sperm RNA. Confirmation of the proposed translation mechanism is experimentally tractable and might significantly enhance our understanding of several fundamental biological processes.