The genetic code of Condylostoma

Condylostoma magnum is a ciliate with a very peculiar genetic code. Translation termination occurs by positional recoding: stop codons work as such only when located close to the 3' of transcripts, and otherwise support amino acid insertion. In this artwork, mRNA translation is depicted with a musical metaphor. Musical notes in triplets represent codons, with colored circles representing the corresponding amino acids inserted. Note that two UAG codons (white triplets) are decoded differently: the first (left) is decoded as glutamine, the second (right) stop signals for elongation termination (broken red shape). 

Illustration by Marzia Faranda. Concept by Marco Mariotti. 

Research paper: Heaphy et al., 2016, Mol Biol Evol, 33:2885–2889.

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