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QUESTION ON NOTICE

Question:

21 November 2022

143. Is there evidence that demonstrates that three potentially ineffective stop codons are any better than one. A leaky bucket is a leaky bucket is it not? Can data please be provided to prove that Methylpseudouridine is just as effective as uridine in stopping codon read through?

Answer:

Question Number: 271
PDR Number: SQ22-000642
Date Submitted: 21/11/2022
Department or Body: Department of Health

Yes – methylpseudouridine is as effective as uridine in stopping codon read through. It is reported in the literature that methylpseudouridine enhances RNA stability and decreases anti-RNA immune response. It is also reported that fully modified RNAs (U substituted with N1-methylpseudouridine) are likely to have high coding fidelity as they are known to prevent wobble-pairing with other nucleotides. The placement of two and three contiguous codons in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, respectively, ensure no-read through of modified stop codons occurs as a single methylpseudouridine stop codon would allow, to some extent, read-through. A copy of the report is available at: www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcell.2021.789427/full.

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28/11/2022

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28/11/2022

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1. Can the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water provide a comprehensive roadmap of the work required for Australia to meet a 43% reduction in CO2 by 2030. This roadmap should set out the length of transmission lines, the number of transmission towers, the number of solar panels (for a give wattage), the number of wind turbines (for a given wattage), the number of batteries (for a given storage), the amount of lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, concrete, and steel etc. needed to build the aforesaid generators and storage. It will need to include the amount of land needed for solar, wind, transmission and storage products, and the biodiversity offsets. Could the amount of CO2 required to build, recycle, or dispose of the aforementioned items also be included? Likewise, could the cost of building, recycling, and disposing of the aforementioned items also be clearly outlined? Biodiversity impacts such as increased tyre wear due to heavier batteries in cars, increased breaking distance on roadkill, impact on bats and birds from transmission lines and wind turbines, and removal of native flora and fauna due to land use should also be clearly outlined. 2. If the Department cannot provide, can it state which department is responsible for maintaining and tracking the roadmap and refer the question onto them?

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