A unique feature of eukaryote initiation of protein translation is a so-called scanning of 5′-untranslated region (5′-UTR) by a ribosome initiation complex to enable bound Met-tRNAi access to the initiation codon located further downstream. Here, we propose a universal scanning-free translation initiation model that is independent of 5′-UTR length and applicable to both 5′-m7G (capped) and uncapped mRNAs.
