AU-rich elements and associated factors: are there unifying principles?

By C. Barreau, L. Paillard, H. Osborne. Nucleic Acids Research, 2006

1,092 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The control of mRNA stability is an important process that allows cells to not only limit, but also rapidly adjust, the expression of regulatory factors whose over expression may be detrimental to the host organism. Sequence elements rich in A and U nucleotides or AU-rich elements (AREs) have been known for many years to target mRNAs for rapid degradation. In this survey, after briefly summarizing the data on the sequence characteristics of AREs, we present an analysis of the known ARE-binding proteins (ARE-BP) with respect to their mRNA targets and the consequences of their binding to the mRNA. In this analysis, both the changes in mRNA stability and the lesser studied effects on translation are considered. This analysis highlights the multitude of mRNAs bound by one ARE-BP and conversely the large number of ARE-BP that associate with any particular ARE-containing mRNA. This situation is discussed with respect to functional redundancies or antagonisms. The potential relationship between mRNA stability and translation is also discussed. Finally, we present several hypotheses that could unify the published data and suggest avenues for future research.

Subfields: Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8f08994c1fedd9de0e1127206a4aad70730f63c5

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Citations in the corpus

Long Noncoding RNAs: Past, Present, and Future (2013, background): “…(AREs) in their 39-UTRs, which recruit RNA-binding proteins such as AUF1 and lead to destabilization of the 660 J. T. Y. Kung, D. Colognori, and J. T. Lee transcript through deadenylation, decapping, and degradation via the action of cellular machineries such as the exosome (Barreau et al. 2006).”
Pathogen Recognition and Inflammatory Signaling in Innate Immune Defenses (2009, background): “, degradation versus stabilization, through binding to the 3 untranslated region (29).”
Regulation of mRNA translation and stability by microRNAs. (2010, background): “Examples of these cis-acting elements include AUrich elements, the c-fos RNA coding determinant, and miRNA target sites (28, 140, 141).”
Mechanisms and consequences of alternative polyadenylation (2011, neutral): “30 UTRs often harbor microRNA (miRNA) binding sites and/or other regulatory sequences, such as AU-rich elements (AREs) (Barreau et al., 2005; Fabian et al., 2010).”
Diverse molecular functions of Hu proteins (2008, neutral): “Hu proteins, on the other hand, stabilize their target mRNAs [69].”
N6-methyladenosine Modulates Messenger RNA Translation Efficiency (2015, neutral): “The mA mark on mRNA shares similarities with the AU-rich element (ARE, Figure 7B) (Barreau et al., 2005).”
P bodies: at the crossroads of post-transcriptional pathways (2007, background): “These mRNAs have been shown to undergo rapid decay by the so-called ARE-mediated mRNA decay (AMD) pathwa”