Yeh Hsin-Sung, Yong Jeongsik
Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA.
Mol Cells. 2016 Apr 30;39(4):281-5. doi: 10.14348/molcells.2016.0035. Epub 2016 Feb 25.
Almost all of eukaryotic mRNAs are subjected to polyadenylation during mRNA processing. Recent discoveries showed that many of these mRNAs contain more than one polyadenylation sites in their 3' untranslated regions (UTR) and that alternative polyadenylation (APA) is prevalent among these genes. Many biological processes such as differentiation, proliferation, and tumorigenesis have been correlated to global APA events in the 3' UTR of mRNAs, suggesting that these APA events are tightly regulated and may play important physiological roles. In this review, recent discoveries in the physiological roles of APA events, as well as the known and proposed mechanisms are summarized. Perspective for future directions is also discussed.
几乎所有真核生物的信使核糖核酸（mRNA）在mRNA加工过程中都会进行多聚腺苷酸化。最近的研究发现，许多这类mRNA在其3'非翻译区（UTR）含有不止一个多聚腺苷酸化位点，并且可变多聚腺苷酸化（APA）在这些基因中普遍存在。许多生物学过程，如分化、增殖和肿瘤发生，都与mRNA的3'UTR中的全局APA事件相关，这表明这些APA事件受到严格调控，并可能发挥重要的生理作用。在这篇综述中，总结了关于APA事件生理作用的最新发现，以及已知和推测的机制。还讨论了未来研究方向的展望。
