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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2012 Jul 3;37(1):96–109. doi: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2012.01850.x

Figure 8. Schematic showing role of PDCD4 in FAS model.

Figure 8

During normal development, when PDCD4 expression is maintained at physiological level, eIF4A is available to bind to cap structure and unwinds the mRNA enabling normal translational process. In the event of ETOH abuse during pregnancy, increase in endogenous PDCD4 levels could sequester eIF4A thus hindering the association of eIF4A to the cap structure. Thus the complex structure of mRNA 5’ UTR is left unresolved leading to hampered scanning of ribosomes, inhibiting translation initiation.