Alternative RNA Structure-Coupled Gene Regulations in Tumorigenesis

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Feng-Chi Chen¹ 

[1] Institute of Population Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli County 350, Taiwan; E-Mail:

关键词: gene regulation;    alternative splicing;    alternative promoter usage;    alternative cleavage and polyadenylation;    untranslated region;    nonsense-mediated decay;    upstream open reading frame;    internal ribosome entry site;    microRNA;    tumorigenesis;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms16010452

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Alternative RNA structures (ARSs), or alternative transcript isoforms, are critical for regulating cellular phenotypes in humans. In addition to generating functionally diverse protein isoforms from a single gene, ARS can alter the sequence contents of 5'/3' untranslated regions (UTRs) and intronic regions, thus also affecting the regulatory effects of these regions. ARS may introduce premature stop codon(s) into a transcript, and render the transcript susceptible to nonsense-mediated decay, which in turn can influence the overall gene expression level. Meanwhile, ARS can regulate the presence/absence of upstream open reading frames and microRNA targeting sites in 5'UTRs and 3'UTRs, respectively, thus affecting translational efficiencies and protein expression levels. Furthermore, since ARS may alter exon-intron structures, it can influence the biogenesis of intronic microRNAs and indirectly affect the expression of the target genes of these microRNAs. The connections between ARS and multiple regulatory mechanisms underline the importance of ARS in determining cell fate. Accumulating evidence indicates that ARS-coupled regulations play important roles in tumorigenesis. Here I will review our current knowledge in this field, and discuss potential future directions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.