Proposed Functions
The purpose of stress granules might be to protect RNAs from harmful conditions, thus their appearance under stress. The accumulation of RNAs into dense globules could keep them from reacting with harmful chemicals and safe-guard the information coded in their RNA sequence.
Stress granules might also function as a decision point for untranslated mRNAs. Molecules can go down one of three paths: further storage, degradation, or re-initiation of translation.
The stress proteins that are the main component of stress granules in plant cells are molecular chaperones that sequester, protect, and possibly repair proteins that unfold during heat and other types of stress. Therefore any association of mRNAs with stress granules may simply be a side effect of the association of partially unfolded RNA-binding proteins with stress granules, similar to the association of mRNAs with proteasomes.
Read more about this topic: Stress Granule
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