Post-transcriptional control of immune responses and its potential application

Abstract

Inflammation is the host response against stresses such as infection. Although the inflammation process is required for the elimination of pathogens, uncontrolled inflammation leads to tissue destruction and inflammatory diseases. To avoid this, the inflammatory response is tightly controlled by multiple layers of regulation. Post-transcriptional control of inflammatory mRNAs is increasingly understood to perform critical roles in this process. This is mediated primarily by a set of RNA binding proteins (RBPs) including tristetraprolin, Roquin and Regnase-1, and RNA methylases. These key regulators coordinate the inflammatory response by modulating mRNA pools in both immune and local nonimmune cells. In this review, we provide an overview of the post-transcriptional coordination of immune responses in various tissues and discuss how RBP-mediated regulation of inflammation may be harnessed as a potential class of treatments for inflammatory diseases.