A New Layer of Gene Regulation is Revealed in mRNA

Recent work reported in Nature highlighted the importance of methylation on messenger RNA (mRNA). Methyl tags that are added to mRNA can have a dramatic impact on the fate of mRNA transcripts. Now an unrelated study in Science has unraveled even more about the effect of methylation on mRNA. Active genes are transcribed into mRNA transcripts, which are often translated into proteins. But cells have to be very careful about which genes are expressed when, and there are many mechanisms involved in the regulation of genes, such as gene promotors,…