Why do we study mRNA translation?

Gene expression is ultimately the sum of events, including transcription, translation, and mRNA and protein degradation, that regulate cellular protein content. Translational control is a particularly important step in gene expression for short-term adaptation to changing metabolic conditions and is a fundamental mechanism used in the early adaptive response of cells to diabetes.  In response to hyperglycemia, the proteins that determine which cellular mRNAs are made into proteins exhibit an increased form of post-translational glycosylation known as O-GlcNAcylation.  In order to determine the extent to which O-GlcNAcylation affects retinal gene expression, we used next-generation sequencing to evaluate total mRNA abundances, and ribosome profiling was used to determine which mRNAs were actively being translated into protein. Remarkably, ~19% of the retinal transcriptome exhibits variation in ribosome density in response to enhanced O-GlcNAcylation.