Several groups have correlated the mechanical force of unfolding of a pseudoknot with its frameshifting efficiency by using optical tweezers (39, (44) (45) (46) and suggest that frameshift efficiency is dependent on the unfolding force rather than on differences of thermodynamic stability between folded and unfolded states. Since we showed here that antisense oligonucleotides can induce frameshifting presumably by serving as a physical barrier for the elongating ribosome, it will be interesting to measure the strength of these linear oligonucleotides in complex with (a piece of) mRNA by optical tweezers and see if there is a correlation with their frameshifting efficiency.