Abundant evidence for translation within the 5' leaders of many human genes is rapidly emerging, especially, because of the advent of ribosome profiling. In most cases, it is believed that the act of translation rather than the encoded peptide is important. However, the wealth of available sequencing data in recent years allows phylogenetic detection of sequences within 5' leaders that have emerged under coding constraint and therefore allow for the prediction of functional 5' leader translation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTranslational regulation is an important aspect of gene regulation, particularly during early development of the fruit fly embryo when transcriptional mechanisms are untenable. Study of pattern formation and dosage compensation has identified several repressors that bind discrete sites in the untranslated portions of target mRNAs. These repressors do not work in isolation - each binds multiple sites in the appropriate mRNA, and the resulting RNA-protein complexes appear to recruit co-repressors by a variety of mechanisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF