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Updated: Aug 17, 2025

Polysome Fractionation and Analysis of Mammalian Translatomes on a Genome-wide Scale
Published on: May 17, 2014
Proteome diversification by mRNA translation in cancer
Adva Kochavi1, Domenica Lovecchio1, William James Faller2
1Division of Oncogenomics, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Plesmanlaan 121, 1066CX Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Oncode Institute, the Netherlands.
Abstract:
mRNA translation is a highly conserved and tightly controlled mechanism for protein synthesis and is well known to be altered by oncogenes to promote cancer development. This distorted mRNA translation is accompanied by the vulnerability of cancer to inhibitors of key mRNA translation components. Novel studies also suggest that these alternations could be utilized for immunotherapy. Ribosome heterogeneity and alternative responses to nutrient shortages, which aid cancer growth and spread, are proposed to elicit aberrant protein production but may also result in previously unidentified therapeutic targets, such as the presentation of cancer-specific peptides at the surface of cancer cells (neoepitopes). This review will assess the driving forces in tRNA and ribosome function that underlie proteome diversification due to alterations in mRNA translation in cancer cells.
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