Dis-correlation with mRNA expression and protein translation ?

[dfozailoff]

Hi, I treated the cells with 5-Aza-dc and TSA and analyze a specific gene transcription and found out that the gene was induced due to both treatment(q-PCR) relative to control. Then I preform a western blot and found out that the protein level was reduced. This kind of dis-correlation can happen with DNA methylation and histone actylation inhibitors? can someone give a reference for this kind of dis-correlation?

Edited August 22, 2019 by dfozailoff

[CharonY]

Depending on the system, there can be fairly low correlation between mRNA levels and actual protein expression. More often than not this is due to posttranscriptional  regulation, such as mechanisms that control how how much and which mRNA effectively gets to a ribosome and gets translated there. There are probably too many mechanisms to list them in detail, but many ultimately affect RNA stability. As a whole there is only partial correlation to be expected between RNA and protein levels in general. 

The cases where protein and gene expression are opposite to each other are trickier, and could and often are the result of at least two different mechanisms. It depends a lot what the baseline levels of transcripts are as well as translation activity in order to establish where regulations have kicked in (though it often is not as straightforward).