Termination signals bring a stop to transcription, ensuring that only gene-encoding parts of the chromosome are transcribed.
[1] In the context of translation, a termination signal is the stop codon on the mRNA that elicits the release of the growing peptide from the ribosome.
[4] These antitermination mechanisms are crucial when the cell is under stress, allowing for increased expression of downstream genes that are needed under dire circumstances.
[3] Due to termination inefficiency, read-through can result in increased regulation of downstream genes that may be crucial to host cell function.
[2] Traditionally, the termination signal for translation is a 3 nucleobase sequence called a stop codon.
[2] Specifically, the 4th base (nucleobase directly following the stop codon) has a significant impact on the termination efficiency.
[2] It has been found that highly expressed genes have higher termination efficiency due to the presence of a purine in the 4th position.