Guanine-rich nucleic acid sequences can adopt noncanonical four-stranded secondary structures called guanine (G)-quadruplexes1. Bioinformatics analysis suggests that G-quadruplex motifs are prevalent in genomes2, which raises the need to elucidate their function. There is now evidence for the existence of DNA G-quadruplexes at telomeres with associated biological function3. A recent hypothesis supports the notion that gene promoter elements contain DNA G-quadruplex motifs that control gene expression at the transcriptional level4. We discovered a highly conserved, thermodynamically stable RNA G-quadruplex in the 5′ untranslated region (UTR) of the gene transcript of the human NRAS proto-oncogene. Using a cell-free translation system coupled to a reporter gene assay, we have demonstrated that this NRAS RNA G-quadruplex modulates translation. This is the first example of translational repression by an RNA G-quadruplex. Bioinformatics analysis has revealed 2,922 other 5′ UTR RNA G-quadruplex elements in the human genome. We propose that RNA G-quadruplexes in the 5′ UTR modulate gene expression at the translational level.

An RNA G-quadruplex in the 5′ UTR of the NRAS proto-oncogene modulates translation