The team is working in the RNA degradation pathways in Eukaryotes using the yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, as an eukaryotic model. We are interested in the cytoplasmic general mRNA degradation pathway and in the elimination of aberrant or non-conform mRNAs such as those lacking a Stop codon (Non-Stop mRNA). These events lead to truncated peptides, which may have toxic effects. Cytoplasmic quality control processes recognize ribosomes that are stalled during translating and selectively eliminate the corresponding aberrant mRNAs as well as the aberrant polypeptides to maintain protein homeostasis. We recently identified the RQC complex, which recognizes the aberrant peptides generated from Non-Stop mRNAs and target them to degradation by the proteasome (Defenouillère et al., PNAS 2013; JBC. 2016; Mol. Biol. Cell. 2016; Curr. Genet. 2016).
