The nexus between RNA-binding proteins and their effectors go.nature.com/3GJOCnY #Review by Shiyang He, @Eugene Valkov, @Sihem Cheloufi & Jernej Murn @UC Riverside @NCI Center for Cancer Research

RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) regulate essentially every event in the lifetime of an RNA molecule, from its production to its destruction, and much has been learned about RNA sequence specificity and general functions of individual RBPs

Nevertheless, how these numerous RBPs instruct a much smaller number of effector molecules, that is, the core engines of RNA processing, as to where, when and how to act remain largely speculative

In this Review, the authors survey the known modes of communication between RBPs and their effectors with a particular focus on converging RBP–effector interactions and their roles in reducing the complexity of RNA networks

He et al. discern emerging unifying principles and discuss their utility in our understanding of RBP function, regulation of biological processes and contribution to human disease