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.
