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Science 28 November 2008:
Vol. 322. no. 5906, pp. 1365 - 1368
DOI: 10.1126/science.1163581
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Reports

Tight Regulation of Unstructured Proteins: From Transcript Synthesis to Protein Degradation

Jörg Gsponer,1* Matthias E. Futschik,1,2,3 Sarah A. Teichmann,1 M. Madan Babu1*

Altered abundance of several intrinsically unstructured proteins (IUPs) has been associated with perturbed cellular signaling that may lead to pathological conditions such as cancer. Therefore, it is important to understand how cells precisely regulate the availability of IUPs. We observed that regulation of transcript clearance, proteolytic degradation, and translational rate contribute to controlling the abundance of IUPs, some of which are present in low amounts and for short periods of time. Abundant phosphorylation and low stochasticity in transcription and translation indicate that the availability of IUPs can be finely tuned. Fidelity in signaling may require that most IUPs be available in appropriate amounts and not present longer than needed.

1 Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 0QH, UK.
2 Institute for Theoretical Biology, Charité, Humboldt-University, Berlin 10115, Germany.
3 Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering Centre for Molecular and Structural Biomedicine, University of Algarve, Faro 8005-139, Portugal.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: madanm{at}mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk (M.M.B.); jgsponer{at}mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk (J.G.)

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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