Ribosomes hop over a 50-nt coding gap during translation of gene 60 mRNA from bacteriophage T4. This event occurs with near-unitary efficiency when gene 60-lacZ fusions are expressed in Escherichia coli. One of the components necessary for this hop is an RNA hairpin structure containing the 5' junction of the 50-nt coding gap. A mutant E. coli was isolated and found to significantly increase hopping when carrying gene 60-lacZ constructs with altered hairpins. The mutation, hop-1, changed Ser93 to Phe in rplI, the gene coding for ribosomal large-subunit protein L9. Ribosomal hopping on a synthetic sequence in the absence of a hairpin was also increased by this mutation. These data suggest that hop-1 may substitute for the function of the hairpin during ribosomal hopping.