Translation is a fundamental process in all living organisms that involves the decoding of genetic information in mRNA by ribosomes and translation factors. The dysregulation of mRNA translation is a common feature of tumorigenesis. Protein expression reflects the total outcome of multiple regulatory mechanisms that change the metabolism of mRNA pathways from synthesis to degradation. Accumulated evidence has clarified the role of an increasing amount of mRNA modifications at each phase of the pathway, resulting in translational output. Translation machinery is directly affected by mRNA modifications, influencing translation initiation, elongation, and termination or altering mRNA abundance and subcellular localization. In this review, we focus on the translation initiation factors associated with cancer as well as several important RNA modifications, for which we describe their association with cancer.
Keywords: 2′-O-dimethyladenosine (m6Am); 5-methylcytosine (m5C); N4-acetylcytidine (ac4C); N6; N6-methyladenosine (m6A); RNA modification; pseudouridine (Ψ); translation initiation factor; tumor.