 In this study, researchers found that nonsense-mediated mRNA decay, NMD, can affect both the translation and degradation of RNA molecules. This process is characterized by low translation initiation rates, low codon usage bias, and low translation elongation speeds. Despite these factors, NMD transcripts still exhibited low ribosomal density in the coding region, suggesting that either initiation failure leads to abortion or that the ribosome moves quickly after initiation failure. Additionally, the low translation efficiency was observed even when there were no NMD targets present, indicating that it may be a general feature of RNA translation. Furthermore, the low translation efficiency was shown to increase under stress conditions, suggesting that it could be used as a regulatory mechanism for NMD targets. This article was authored by Zhengguozhong, Li Jiu, Landian Hu, and others.