When it comes to controlling the amount of protein made based on a gene’s code, cells have a variety of tools at their disposal: attaching epigenetic marks to a gene can make it less accessible to be copied into mRNA, for example, or cells can make more or fewer of the transcription factors that get the process started. Now, a paper published on January 17 in Cell Systems uses a novel method to zero in on a lesser-studied control mechanism: small changes in an mRNA’s start region that affect how efficiently the transcript attracts ribosomes, and thus how much protein is churned out.
“This study uses an ingenious way of being able to monitor ribosome binding” to the start regions, Maria Barna, a geneticist at Stanford University who was not involved in the study, tells The Scientist. Using this method, the researchers “identified a whole slew of potential cis-regulatory elements, ...
