Translational regulation of mRNAs is critically important for proper gene expression in germ cells, gametes, and embryos. The ability of the nucleus to control gene expression in these systems may be limited due to spatial or temporal constraints, as well as the breadth of gene products they express to prepare for the rapid animal development that follows. During development germ granules are hubs of post-transcriptional regulation of mRNAs. They assemble and remodel messenger ribonucleoprotein (mRNP) complexes for translational repression or activation. Recently, mRNPs have been appreciated as discrete regulatory units, whose function is dictated by the many positive and negative acting factors within the complex. Repressed mRNPs must be activated for translation on ribosomes to introduce novel proteins into germ cells. The binding of eIF4E to interacting proteins (4EIPs) that sequester it represents a node that controls many aspects of mRNP fate including localization, stability, poly(A) elongation, deadenylation, and translational activation/repression. Furthermore, plants and animals have evolved to express multiple functionally distinct eIF4E and 4EIP variants within germ cells, giving rise to different modes of translational regulation.

mRNA的翻译调控对于在生殖细胞，配子和胚胎中正确表达基因至关重要。由于空间或时间限制以及它们表达的基因产物的广度以为随后的快速动物发育做准备，核在这些系统中控制基因表达的能力可能受到限制。在发育过程中，胚芽颗粒是mRNA转录后调控的枢纽。他们组装和重塑信使核糖核蛋白（mRNP）复合物，以进行翻译抑制或激活。近来，mRNP被认为是离散的调节单元，其功能由复合物中的许多正作用和负作用因子决定。抑制的mRNP必须被激活才能在核糖体上翻译，以将新蛋白引入生殖细胞。eIF4E与隔离它的相互作用蛋白（4EIP）的结合代表了一个节点，该节点控制mRNP命运的许多方面，包括定位，稳定性，poly（A）延伸，腺苷酸化和翻译激活/抑制。此外，动植物已经进化为在生殖细胞内表达多种功能不同的eIF4E和4EIP变体，从而产生了不同的翻译调控模式。