Selective translation initiation by ribosome jumping in adenovirus-infected and heat-shocked cells

Translation initiation on eukaryotic mRNAs usually occurs by 5'-processive scanning of 40S ribosome subunits from the m(7)GTP-cap to the initiating AUG. In contrast, picornavirus and some specialized mRNAs initiate translation by internally binding ribosomes. A poorly described third mechanism of initiation, referred to as ribosome shunting or jumping, involves discontinuous scanning by 40S ribosome subunits, in which large segments of the 5' noncoding region are bypassed. Ribosome shunting has only been observed to date on a cauliflower mosaic virus mRNA. In this report we show that the family of adenovirus late mRNAs, which are preferentially translated during infection, use a ribosome jumping mechanism to initiate protein synthesis. Late adenovirus mRNAs contain a common 5'-noncoding region known as the tripartite leader, which confers preferential translation by reducing the requirement for the rate-limiting initiation factor eIF-4F (cap-binding protein complex). Adenovirus inhibits cell protein synthesis largely by inactivating eIF-4F. We show that the tripartite leader directs both 5' linear ribosome scanning and ribosome jumping when eIF-4F is abundant but exclusively uses a ribosome jumping mechanism during late adenovirus infection or heat shock (stress) of mammalian cells, when eIF-4F is altered or inactivated. Shunting is directed by a complex group of secondary structures in the tripartite leader and is facilitated by one or more unidentified viral late gene products. We propose that shunting may represent a widespread mechanism to facilitate selective translation of specialized classes of capped mRNAs, including some stress and developmentally regulated mRNAs, which possess little requirement for eIF-4F but do not initiate by internal ribosome binding.