A Reporter System for Translational Readthrough of Stop Codons in Human Cells.

Agents to induce readthrough of premature termination codons (PTCs) are useful research tools and potential therapeutics. Reporters used to detect PTC readthrough are gene-specific and thus are not suited to for general assessment of readthrough activity or in cases where PTC-inactivated genes are unknown. Here we describe a GFP-based reporter construct pMHG-W57* which is capable of detecting dose-dependent drug-induced PTC readthrough both by fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. pMHG-W57* may be used as a general indicator of PTC readthrough in living cells and obviates the need for gene-specific recoding sequences in reporter constructs.