Data from: Ribosome profiling reveals pervasive and regulated stop codon readthrough in Drosophila melanogaster

Ribosomes can read through stop codons in a regulated manner, elongating
rather than terminating the nascent peptide. Stop codon readthrough is
essential to diverse viruses, and phylogenetically predicted to occur in a
few hundred genes in Drosophila melanogaster, but the importance of
regulated readthrough in eukaryotes remains largely unexplored. Here, we
present a ribosome profiling assay (deep sequencing of ribosome-protected
mRNA fragments) for Drosophila melanogaster, and provide the first
genome-wide experimental analysis of readthrough. Readthrough is far more
pervasive than expected: the vast majority of readthrough events evolved
within D. melanogaster and were not predicted phylogenetically. The
resulting C-terminal protein extensions show evidence of selection,
contain functional subcellular localization signals, and their readthrough
is regulated, arguing for their importance. We further demonstrate that
readthrough occurs in yeast and humans. Readthrough thus provides general
mechanisms both to regulate gene expression and function, and to add
plasticity to the proteome during evolution.