Figure 1.

The abundance of each mRNA detected in a microarray assay is determined by its rates of transcription and decay. Transcriptional and post-transcriptional events operate in tandem to dictate the level of each mRNA at a given time point, and the kinetics of gene expression under different conditions. Several studies and review articles, some of which are cited in this article, have demonstrated that mRNAs encoding functionally related proteins can change stability in concert with one another following cellular activation.