CONTEXT

In cellular biology, mRNA translation monitoring is an important part of biological research. Strategies to follow and measure protein synthesis have been developed over the years, among which incorporation of radioactive amino acids pioneered our current understanding of translation. The difficulties linked to the use of radioactivity have however always limited our ability to monitor protein synthesis in tissues or in heterogenous cell populations, in particular in vivo. Other methods such as transformation with fluorescent reporters or enzymatic loading of unnatural aminoacids on tRNA never replaced efficiently the use of radioactivity despite all the disadvantages linked to radioprotection issues. To overcome these disadvantages a new method has been developped.