Article révisé par les pairs
Résumé : The biochemical life of mRNA migrating from the nucleus to the cytoplasm is controled by numerous interactions with regulatory proteins. Most of those steps are under the control of the 5' and 3' untranslated regions interacting with specific regulatory proteins and directing transport, translation and stabilization of the mRNA. Similar to DNA, mRNA carry cis-acting sequences allowing the cell to respond to numerous indogenous trans-acting factors able to adapt translation of the message to different physiopathological situations. These regulatory elements could be compared to promoting and enhancing transcriptional sequences. The remaining question is: do mRNA really have promoters?