Alternative mechanisms of mRNA translationiInitiation in cellular stress response and cancer

Throughout evolution, eukaryotic cells have devised different mechanisms to cope with stressful environments. When eukaryotic cells are exposed to stress stimuli, they activate adaptive pathways that allow them to restore cellular homeostasis. Most types of stress stimuli have been reported to induce a decrease in overall protein synthesis accompanied by induction of alternative mechanisms of mRNA translation initiation. Here, we present well-studied and recent examples of such stress responses and the alternative translation initiation mechanisms they induce, and discuss the consequences of such regulation for cell homeostasis and oncogenic transformation.Marco M Candeias was partially supported by grants PTDC/MED-ONC/32048/2017 and PTDC/BIMONC/4890/2014 from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), by Grants-in-Aid 16K21111 and 18K07229 from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan, by Takeda Foundation and Astellas Foundation. Juliane Menezes is a posdoc fellow (SFRH/BPD/98360/2013) from FCT.