High-resolution reconstruction of a ribosome sheds light on evolutionary dynamics and tissue specificity.

is an important model organism for human health and disease, with foundational contributions to the understanding of gene expression and tissue patterning in animals. An invaluable tool in modern gene expression research is the presence of a high-resolution ribosome structure, though no such structure exists for Here, we present a high-resolution single-particle cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) reconstruction and molecular model of a ribosome, revealing a significantly streamlined animal ribosome. Many facets of ribosome structure are conserved in , including overall ribosomal architecture and the mechanism of cycloheximide, whereas other facets, such as expansion segments and eL28, are rapidly evolving.

NMD targets experience deadenylation during their maturation and endonucleolytic cleavage during their decay.

Premature stop codon-containing mRNAs can produce truncated and dominantly acting proteins that harm cells. Eukaryotic cells protect themselves by degrading such mRNAs via the Nonsense-Mediated mRNA Decay (NMD) pathway. The precise reactions by which cells attack NMD target mRNAs remain obscure, precluding a mechanistic understanding of NMD and hampering therapeutic efforts to control NMD.

Poly(a) selection introduces bias and undue noise in direct RNA-sequencing.

Background: Genome-wide RNA-sequencing technologies are increasingly critical to a wide variety of diagnostic and research applications. RNA-seq users often first enrich for mRNA, with the most popular enrichment method being poly(A) selection. In many applications it is well-known that poly(A) selection biases the view of the transcriptome by selecting for longer tailed mRNA species.