Research article
mRNA stability and the unfolding of gene expression in the long-period yeast metabolic cycle
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* Corresponding author: Claudio Altafini altafini@sissa.it
1 SISSA, via Beirut 4, 34014 Trieste, Italy
2 Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", via Ariosto 25, 00185 Roma, Italy
BMC Systems Biology 2009, 3:18 doi:10.1186/1752-0509-3-18
Published: 6 February 2009Abstract
Background
In yeast, genome-wide periodic patterns associated with energy-metabolic oscillations have been shown recently for both short (approx. 40 min) and long (approx. 300 min) periods.
Results
The dynamical regulation due to mRNA stability is found to be an important aspect of the genome-wide coordination of the long-period yeast metabolic cycle. It is shown that for periodic genes, arranged in classes according either to expression profile or to function, the pulses of mRNA abundance have phase and width which are directly proportional to the corresponding turnover rates.
Conclusion
The cascade of events occurring during the yeast metabolic cycle (and their correlation with mRNA turnover) reflects to a large extent the gene expression program observable in other dynamical contexts such as the response to stresses/stimuli.