A subset of nuclear receptor coregulators act as coupling proteins during synthesis and maturation of RNA transcripts

Gene expression is a multistep process starting in the cell nucleus with the synthesis of the primary transcripts that undergo several modifications (including capping, splicing, and polyadenylation) leading to the export of the mature mRNAs into the cytoplasm for translation into proteins. Although an emerging view is that all the steps from transcription to translation are mechanically and functionally coupled, the proteins that are involved in this coupled process are still poorly characterized. In recent years, a growing list of proteins known to control gene expression at the transcriptional level, named transcriptional coregulators, have been independently shown to play additional roles in other steps of gene expression. In this review we compile these emerging data suggesting that a subset of transcriptional coregulators play a major role in the coordination of the individual steps of the gene expression process.