Chapter 17, Problem 10
What are processing bodies (P bodies), and what role do they play in mRNA regulation?
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Nonsense-mediated decay is an mRNA surveillance pathway that eliminates mRNAs with premature stop codons. How does the cell distinguish between normal mRNAs and those with a premature stop?
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?
Explain how the addition of acetyl groups to histones leads to a weaker association of DNA in nucleosomes.
Distinguish between the cis-acting regulatory elements referred to as promoters and enhancers.
Enhancers can influence the transcription of genes far away on the same chromosome. How are the effects of enhancers restricted so that they do not exert inappropriate transcriptional activation of non-target genes?
Competing endogenous RNAs act as molecular 'sponges.' What does this mean, and what do they compete with?