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Updated: Mar 1, 2026

Analysis of Translation Initiation During Stress Conditions by Polysome Profiling
Published on: May 19, 2014
Translational control and the cancer cell response to stress
Nathaniel Robichaud1, Nahum Sonenberg1
1Goodman Cancer Research Centre and Department of Biochemistry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Abstract:
The evidence for the importance of aberrant translation in cancer cells is overwhelming. Reflecting the wealth of data, there are excellent reviews delineating how ribosomes and initiation factors are linked to cancer [1-3], and the therapeutic strategies being devised to target them [4]. Changes in translational efficiency can engender a malignant phenotype without the need for chromatin reorganization, transcription, splicing and mRNA export [5,6]. Thus, cancer-related modulations of the translational machinery are ideally suited to allow cancer cells to respond to the various stresses encountered along the path of tumorigenesis and organism-wide dissemination [7•,8,9,10•]. Emerging findings supporting this notion are the focus of this review.
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