Ribosome-associated ncRNAs: An emerging class of translation regulators

Abstract

Accumulating recent evidence identified the ribosome as binding target for numerous small and long non-pro-tein-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) in various organisms of all 3 domains of life. Therefore it appears that ribosome-associated ncRNAs (rancRNAs) are a prevalent, yet poorly understood class of cellular transcripts. Since rancRNAs are associated with the arguable most central enzyme of the cell it seems plausible to propose a role in translation control. Indeed first experimental evidence on small ranc-RNAs has been presented, linking ribosome association with fine-tuning the rate of protein biosynthesis in a stressdependent manner.