Nonsense shielding: protecting RNA from decay leads to cancer

Abstract

Despite intense scrutiny, the signals that determine whether a given RNA is degraded by the highly conserved and selective nonsense‐mediated RNA decay (NMD) pathway remain murky. In this issue of The EMBO Journal, Kishor et al shed light on this issue by demonstrating that the RNA‐binding protein, hnRNP L, protects a subset of RNAs from degradation by NMD. This mechanism is responsible for stabilizing the mRNA encoding the pro‐survival “oncogenic” protein, BCL‐2, in B‐cell lymphoma.