Genone regulation consists of many mechanisms that are utilized in the cell. These mechanisms can eitehr increase or decrease the production of specific gene products: RNA and proteins. Gene regulation is used in biology to discribe metabolic pathways that respond to the enviornment. Any step in gene expression (transcription, translation, RNA processing, and modification of a protein) can be seen as gene regulation.
Gene expression plays an essential role in viruses, prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells because it increases the ability of an organism to adapt to its surroundings and allows the cell to express a particular protein when it is needed. Furthermore, in multicellular organisms gene expression comes from the process of cellular differentiation and morphogenesis, which leads to different yypes of cells being created to synthesis different proteins.
Any step in gene expression can be modulated to increase or decrease the reaction activity. The following list are the stages where gene expression can be regulated
- Transcription
- Chromatin domains
- Post-transcriptional modification
- RNA Transport
- Translation
- mRNA degration