To progress through their normal developmental cycle, Leishmania and related kinetoplastid parasites must sense and respond to extreme fluctuations in the host environment. Gene expression in kinetoplastids is divergent from other eukaryotes in that transcription is not controlled on an individual gene basis. Consequently, post-transcriptional control points such as mRNA stability and translation have been elevated as key determinants of regulation. As with higher eukaryotes, these processes are governed primarily by the interactions of cis-acting elements in mRNA and trans-acting RNA-binding proteins (RBPs). Considerable effort has therefore been devoted to the study of such elements in kinetoplastids; however, few have been implicated in the context of specific stress-response pathways.