Molecular Biology 5th Edition by Robert Weaver

Exercise 4

You are studying a eukaryotic mRNA that you believe exhibits control at the level of translation, particularly the initiation of translation. You think that the 5-UTR plays a role in the control of translation. To definitively determine the role of the 5-UTR, describe in detail experiments that you could perform to prove this. Be sure to include how you would experimentally determine if a protein binds to the 5-UTR to prevent translation and the possible effects a mutation in the 5-UTR might have on gene expression at the RNA level.