The upstream open reading frame of the Arabidopsis AtMHX gene has a strong impact on transcript accumulation through the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay pathway.

Approximately 20% of plant genes possess upstream open-reading frames (uORFs). The effect of uORFs on gene expression has mainly been studied at the translational level. Very little is known about the impact of plant uORFs on transcript content through the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway, which degrades transcripts bearing premature termination codons (PTCs).