Post-Transcriptional Control of Gene Expression

The last ten years have witnessed a remarkable increase in our awareness of the importance of events subsequent to transcriptional initiation in terms of the regulation and control of gene expression. In particular, the development of recombinant DNA techniques that began in the 1970s provided powerful new tools with which to study the molecular basis of control and regulation at all levels. The resulting investigations revealed a diversity of post-transcriptional mechanisms in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Scientists working on translation, mRNA stability, transcriptional (anti)termination or other aspects of gene expression will often have met at specialist meetings for their own research area. However, only rarely do workers in different areas of post-transcriptional control/ regulation have the opportunity to meet under one roof. We therefore thought it was time to bring together leading representatives of most of the relevant areas in a small workshop intended to encourage interaction across the usual borders of research, both in terms of the processes studied, and with respect to the evolutionary division prokaryotes/eukaryotes. Given the breadth of topics covered and the restrictions in size imposed by the NATO workshop format, it was an extraordinarily difficult task to choose the participants. However, we regarded this first attempt as an experiment on a small scale, intended to explore the possibilities of a meeting of this kind. Judging by the response of the participants during and after the workshop, the effort had been worthwhile.