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.
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The authors would like to thank M Schmidlin and M Colombi for discussions, graphics and access to unpublished data.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.