In eukaryotic cells, nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is an effective mRNA surveillance mechanism that detects and degrades mRNAs with premature termination codons ( PTC) and protects cells from the potentially deleterious effects of truncated proteins. Some cis-acting regulatory elements have been reported involving in NMD. They are PTC presence, PTC recongnation by downstream elements that termed as downstream sequence element (DSE) in yeast and primarily exon-exon junction ( EEJ) in mammalian cells, stabilizer sequence (STE) inactivation the NMD, and other sequences correlated with NMD such as extended poly (A) in 3' UTRs,upstream open reading frame (uORF) located in 5' UTR and programmed -1 ribosomal frameshift (-1 PRF). Progress on cis-acting regulatory elements in nonsense-mediated mRNA decay was reviewed in this paper.