Post-transcriptional regulation of proliferation and quiescence

Several studies have reported that functionally related genes exhibit similar codon usage, which has been shown to impact protein production by the control of mRNA decay or translation. However, codon-mediated control and their relationship to growth conditions have been intensely debated and remain unclear. Here, we investigate the post-transcriptional gene expression control mechanisms employed in cells in proliferation or quiescence. These investigations show that in proliferative conditions we see that subsets of mRNAs with increased mRNA stability are associated with enhanced translation. However, this is not the case in quiescence, where mRNA stability is not linked to changes in translation. In addition, we observe that while G/C-ending codons are more frequently used in both conditions, there is a shift towards A/U-ending codons in proliferation, and this is accompanied by corresponding changes in tRNAs and translational output. tRNA profiles of proliferating and quiescent human fibroblasts