STRC exon 1 conservation and NMD motifs

Constraint. E1 under strong negative selection (gnomAD pLI, Zoonomia). Loss of function via early stops = near-certain NMD substrate. NMD rule. PTC >50 nt upstream of last exon-exon junction → degraded by NMD. STRC has ~28 exon-junctions, so NMD strongly gates stop-gain alleles. ASO implications for h08.

  • Skip E1 → frameshift → NMD → no protein. Bad.
  • Skip in-frame exons only.
  • Consider pseudoexon inclusion or 3’UTR modulators instead.

Connections