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Eukaryotic cells contain translation-associated mRNA surveillance pathways which prevent the production of potentially toxic proteins from aberrant mRNA translation events. We found that loss of mRNA surveillance pathways in mutants deficient in nonsense-mediated decay (NMD), no-go decay (NGD) and nonstop decay (NSD) results in increased protein aggregation. We have isolated and identified the proteins that aggregate and our bioinformatic analyses indicates that increased aggregation of aggregation-prone proteins is a general occurrence in mRNA surveillance mutants, rather than being attributable to specific pathways. The proteins that aggregate in mRNA surveillance mutants tend to be more highly expressed, more abundant and more stable proteins compared with the wider proteome. There is also a strong correlation with the proteins that aggregate in response to nascent protein misfolding and an enrichment for proteins that are substrates of ribosome-associated Hsp70 chaperones, consistent with susceptibility for aggregation primarily occurring during translation/folding. We also identified a significant overlap between the aggregated proteins in mRNA surveillance mutants and ageing yeast cells suggesting that translation-dependent protein aggregation may be a feature of the loss of proteostasis that occurs in aged cell populations.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are toxic by-products of normal aerobic metabolism. ROS can damage mRNAs and the translational apparatus resulting in translational defects and aberrant protein production. Three mRNA quality control systems monitor mRNAs for translational errors: nonsense-mediated decay (NMD), non-stop decay (NSD) and no-go decay (NGD) pathways. Here, we show that factors required for the recognition of NSD substrates and components of the SKI complex are required for oxidant tolerance. We found an overlapping requirement for Ski7, which bridges the interaction between the SKI complex and the exosome, and NGD components (Dom34/Hbs1) which have been shown to function in both NSD and NGD. We show that ski7 dom34 and ski7 hbs1 mutants are sensitive to hydrogen peroxide stress and accumulate an NSD substrate. We further show that NSD substrates are generated during ROS exposure as a result of aggregation of the Sup35 translation termination factor, which increases stop codon read-through allowing ribosomes to translate into the 3’-end of mRNAs. Overexpression of Sup35 decreases stop codon readthrough and rescues oxidant tolerance consistent with this model. Our data reveal an unanticipated requirement for the NSD pathway during oxidative stress conditions which prevents the production of aberrant proteins from NSD mRNAs.