mRNA stability and cancer: an emerging link?

Abstract

Many oncogenes, growth factor, cytokine and cell-cycle genes are regulated post-transcriptionally. The major mechanism is by controlling the rate of mRNA turnover for transcripts bearing destabilising cis-elements. To date, only a handful of regulatory factors have been identified that appear to control a large pool of target mRNAs, suggesting that a slight perturbation in the control mechanism may generate wide-ranging effects that could contribute to the development of a complex disorder such as cancer. In support of this view, mRNA turnover responds to signalling pathways that are often overactive in cancer, suggesting a post-transcriptional component in addition to the well-recognised transcriptional aspect of oncogenesis. Here the authors review examples of deregulated post-transcriptional control in oncogenesis, discuss post-transcriptionally regulated transcripts of oncologic significance, and consider the key role of signalling pathways in linking both processes and as an enticing therapeutic prospect.

Keywords::

• cancer
• mRNA turnover
• post-transcriptional regulation
• signalling

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank M Schmidlin and M Colombi for discussions, graphics and access to unpublished data. The authors were funded in part by grants from the Schweizerische Nationalfonds zur Foerderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung.

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