Collective behavior in gene regulation: Post-transcriptional regulation and the temporal compartmentalization of cellular cycles

Self-sustained oscillations are perhaps the most studied objects in science. The accomplishment of such a task reliably and accurately requires the presence of specific control mechanisms to face the presence of variable and largely unpredictable environmental stimuli and noise. Self-sustained oscillations of transcript abundance are, in fact, widespread and are not limited to the reproductive cycle but are also observed during circadian rhythms, metabolic cycles, developmental cycles and so on. To date, much of the literature has focused on the transcriptional machinery underlying control of the basic timing of transcript abundance. However, mRNA abundance is known to be regulated at the post-transcriptional level also and the relative contribution of the two mechanisms to gene-expression programmes is currently a major challenge in molecular biology. Here, we review recent results showing the relevance of the post-transcriptional regulation layer and present a statistical reanalysis of the yeast metabolic cycle using publicly available gene-expression and RNA-binding data. Taken together, the recent theoretical and experimental developments reviewed and the results of our reanalysis strongly indicate that regulation of mRNA stability is a widespread, phase-specific and finely tuned mechanism for the multi-layer control of gene expression needed to achieve high flexibility and adaptability to external and internal signals.