AU-rich elements (AREs) are cis-elements in mRNAs that regulate stability and decay. How is it possible that a single mRNA sequence element can serve to stabilize an mRNA in some cases and lead to its decay in other scenarios?

Video transcript

Welcome back. Here's our next problem. It says AU rich elements A. R. E. S. Are sequences of RNA that contain a high percentage of. Well this one is a nice easy one for us because it says AU rich elements and we look at our answer choices are all different um RNA nucleotides. And since we have au rich elements it pretty much points us straight to choice B. Adenine and uracil A. And you and indeed AU rich elements are sequences of RNA that contain a high percentage of adenine and uracil but we can talk a little bit about and recall the function of these elements. So let's put that up here. They are commonly present in three prime untranslated regions of M. R. N. A. And they usually target M. R. N. A. For rapid degradation. And they do that because RNA binding proteins can identify and bind these AU rich elements and then degrade the M. RNA. So that's important in um are in a regular in the regulation of genes because as the M RNA is degraded, it will no longer be available to be translated. So that prevents genes from being over expressed. So that's the function of those AU rich elements. And again those au rich elements are sequences of RNA that contain a high percentage of choice B. Adenine and uracil. See you in the next video