Sensing small molecules is crucial for microorganisms to adapt their genetic programs to changes in their environment. Arrest peptides encoded by short regulatory open reading frames program the ribosomes that translate them to undergo translational arrest in response to specific metabolites. Ribosome stalling in turn controls the expression of downstream genes on the same messenger RNA by translational or transcriptional means. In this review, we present our current understanding of the mechanisms by which ribosomes translating arrest peptides sense different metabolites, such as antibiotics or amino acids, to control gene expression.

中文翻译：

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核糖体作为小分子传感器

感知小分子对于微生物调整其遗传程序以适应环境变化至关重要。由短调控开放阅读框编码的阻滞肽对核糖体进行编程，核糖体翻译它们以响应特定代谢物而进行翻译阻滞。核糖体停滞进而通过翻译或转录方式控制同一信使RNA上下游基因的表达。在这篇综述中，我们介绍了我们目前对翻译阻滞肽的核糖体感知不同代谢物（例如抗生素或氨基酸）以控制基因表达的机制的理解。