The role of RNA structure in 3’ end processing in eukaryotes

Maturation of pre-mRNA into fully functional mRNA involves a series of highly coordinated steps that are essential for eukaryotic gene expression. RNA structure has been found to play regulatory roles in many of these steps, including cleavage, polyadenylation, and termination. Recent advances in structure probing techniques have been instrumental in revealing how nascent transcript conformation contributes to these dynamic, co-transcriptional processes. In this review, we present examples where RNA structure affects accessibility and/or function of key processing enzymes, thereby influencing the efficiency and precision of 3′ end processing machinery. We also discuss emerging technologies that could further enhance our understanding of RNA structure mediated regulation of 3’ end processing.