Mutations that alter the activity of RNA-binding proteins or their abundance have been implicated in numerous diseases such as neurodegenerative disorders and various types of cancer. This highlights the importance of RBP proteostasis and the necessity to tightly control the expression levels and activities of RBPs. In many cases, RBPs engage in an auto-regulatory feedback by directly binding to and influencing the fate of their own mRNAs, exerting control over their own expression.

Together with our colleagues Michaela Müller-McNicoll from the Institute of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at the Goethe University Frankfurt, Oliver Rossbach from the Institute of Biochemistry at the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, and Jingyi Hiu at the State Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology (CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology), we have reviewed RBP-mediated autogenous feedback regulation in eukaryotic organisms. For this feedback control, RBPs employ a variety of mechanisms operating at all levels of post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression to either to maintain protein abundance within a physiological range (exerting negative feedback) or to enforce and stabilize cell fate decisions through generation of binary, genetic on/off switches.

The article has just been published in the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology – click here to read the full version.