Degradation
Different mRNAs within the same cell have distinct lifetimes (stabilities). In bacterial cells, individual mRNAs can survive from seconds to more than an hour; in mammalian cells, mRNA lifetimes range from several minutes to days. The greater the stability of an mRNA the more protein may be produced from that mRNA. The limited lifetime of mRNA enables a cell to alter protein synthesis rapidly in response to its changing needs. There are many mechanisms that lead to the destruction of a mRNA, some of which are described below.
Read more about this topic: Messenger RNA
Famous quotes containing the word degradation:
“Gradually we come to admit that Shakespeare understands a greater extent and variety of human life than Dante; but that Dante understands deeper degrees of degradation and higher degrees of exaltation.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“We found nothing grand in the history of the Jews nor in the morals inculcated in the Pentateuch.... I know of no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Such poverty as we have today in all our great cities degrades the poor, and infects with its degradation the whole neighborhood in which they live. And whatever can degrade a neighborhood can degrade a country and a continent and finally the whole civilized world, which is only a large neighborhood.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)