Dipartimento di Fisiologia e Biochimica Generali, Università di Milano, Via Celoria, 26, 20133 Milano, Italy. graziano.pesole@unimi.it
Gene expression is finely regulated at the post-transcriptional level. Features of the untranslated regions of mRNAs that control their translation, degradation and localization include stem-loop structures, upstream initiation codons and open reading frames, internal ribosome entry sites and various cis-acting elements that are bound by RNA-binding proteins.