Buffering of non‐functional mRNA co‐regulation likely is a passive process Buffering of non‐functional mRNA co‐regulation likely is a passive process Percentage of gene pairs with coordinated post‐transcriptional regulation, irrespective of genomic distance. Gene pairs with sustained protein co‐regulation consistently stand out as more likely to share similar aspects of post‐transcriptional control. Genes were considered to have a similar mRNA half‐life if the half‐life ratio between the more and less stable gene was < 1.5. For miRNAs, all gene pairs targeted by at least one shared miRNA were considered. Gene pairs were said to have correlated ribosome profiles if their ribosome occupancy correlated with PCC > 0.5 (BH adj. P < 0.001) across LCLs. For the non‐exponentially degraded proteins (NEDs) barchart, gene pairs containing at least one NED were counted. Coding length was considered similar if the longer protein was < 1.5‐fold longer than the shorter protein. Numbers of gene pairs are shown inside the bars. Statistical significance was calculated using Fisher's exact test (*P < 0.01, **P < 1 × 10−6, ***P < 3 × 10−27).No striking relationship between gene distance and the extent to which gene pairs show similar post‐transcriptional regulation. Note that the small increase of similar ribosome occupancy towards closeby genes may be explained by the fact that ribosome profiles partially reflect mRNA abundance. Georg Kustatscher et al. Mol Syst Biol 2017;13:937 © as stated in the article, figure or figure legend