PatrÃcia Shigunov, Bruno Dallagiovanna and FabÃola Holetz
Stem cells have been proposed as a promising source for cell therapy. Understanding the biological processes that commit stem cells to differentiate into a particular cell type is essential for the successful repair of injured tissue, and even for whole organogenesis. Cellular differentiation can be modeled as a network of regulatory circuits that direct various steps of gene expression and mediate the spatiotemporal control of a cell’s proteome. In this minireview, we discuss the current aspects of posttranscriptional regulation of gene expression in stem cells, with an emphasis on translational regulation. Several data supports the idea that a significant percentage of genes have their expression controlled at the translational level during stem cell commitment and differentiation. We focus on strategies using polysome and ribosome profiling to measure translational rates and to unravel the dynamics of this process.
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