5′-UTR RNA G-quadruplexes: translation regulation and targeting

By A. Bugaut, Shankar Balasubramanian. Nucleic Acids Research, 2012

604 citations recorded by the source corpus.

RNA structures in the untranslated regions (UTRs) of mRNAs influence post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Much of the knowledge in this area depends on canonical double-stranded RNA elements. There has been considerable recent advancement of our understanding of guanine(G)-rich nucleic acids sequences that form four-stranded structures, called G-quadruplexes. While much of the research has been focused on DNA G-quadruplexes, there has recently been a rapid emergence of interest in RNA G-quadruplexes, particularly in the 5′-UTRs of mRNAs. Collectively, these studies suggest that RNA G-quadruplexes exist in the 5′-UTRs of many genes, including genes of clinical interest, and that such structural elements can influence translation. This review features the progresses in the study of 5′-UTR RNA G-quadruplex-mediated translational control. It covers computational analysis, cell-free, cell-based and chemical biology studies that have sought to elucidate the roles of RNA G-quadruplexes in both cap-dependent and -independent regulation of mRNA translation. We also discuss protein trans-acting factors that have been implicated and the evidence that such RNA motifs have potential as small molecule target. Finally, we close the review with a perspective on the future challenges in the field of 5′-UTR RNA G-quadruplex-mediated translation regulation.

Subfields: Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/707863ed32d82f287dafdfa6e24c7b154ca768e9

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In Molecular Biology

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Citations in the corpus

• G-quadruplexes and their regulatory roles in biology (2015, background): “Computational predictions have revealed that RNA pG4s are also present in the 5′ untranslated region (UTR) of many genes and the involvement of G-quadruplexes in the regulation of translation has been demonstrated by in vitro and in vivo studies (Figure 2D) (24).”