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RNA Interference Leads To Nobel Prize
gollum123 writes "The Nobel Prize for medicine has been awarded to two US scientists who discovered a phenomenon called RNA interference, which regulates the expression of genes. From the article: 'The breakthrough has also given scientists the ability to systematically test the functions of all human genes. [...] The Nobel citation, issued by Sweden's Karolinska Institute, said: "This year's Nobel Laureates have discovered a fundamental mechanism for controlling the flow of genetic information."'"
for all you Americans read that as
"lalalalalalalalalalalalalalala genetics lalalalalalalalalalalalaa"
just like the guvmint does. OK?
we'll let you know when it's all clear.
For a second there I thought the title said "RIAA Interference Leads To Nobel Prize". I have found their interference with people's lives to be creative, but Nobel Prize worthy...hardly.
The Nobel Prize for medicine has been awarded to two US scientists who discovered a phenomenon called RNA interference, which regulates the expression of genes.
In other news, President Bush has awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to two US scientists who discovered the gene which regulates the expression of opinion.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
I'd like all of you to take note of how the RNA looks like a cross. Go on, look at the pretty photo that comes with the article.
This is because God intelligently designed RNA, all those two thousand years ago.
It seems that DNA is the 'paper tape' component of the genetic Turing machine. mRNA seems to be the data bus and RNA interference is the ALU.
If the basic building blocks of life (genes) can be reduced to algorithms, how much longer until we can reduce the rest of our bodies to computer-replicable algorithms?
Here's the schedule for future announcements: http://nobelprize.org/prize_announcements/
This is pretty impressive - the work is just 8 years old. And Prof. Mello is pretty young (at least, looks like it)! Neat
The Nobel citation, issued by Sweden's Karolinska Institute, said: "This year's Nobel Laureates have discovered a fundamental mechanism for controlling the flow of genetic information."
I'm pretty sure condoms have been around for a while.
2^4 * 3 * 20929
In the 1980's, Dr. Rich Jorgensen was a botanist interesting in making prettier petunias. He identified chalcone synthase, an enzyme needed to manufacture the purple pigment in the flowers. He reasoned that the more chalcone synthase there was, the purpler the flowers would become.
Normally, the cell DNA for an enzyme is copied into RNA, which is made into protein. It seemed logical that increasing the RNA would lead to more protein.
In fact, the statement
DNA -> RNA -> Protein
is often called the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology.
Because single stranded RNA was so hard to synthesize, Jorgensen injected massive amounts of double stranded RNA for chalcone synthase into the petunias. Much to his surprise, the petunias didn't become more purple: they became white. Somehow, increasing the enzyme RNA number actually suppressed the protein.
This Nobel Prize is well-deserved. By elucidating the mechanism of this paradoxical response, they challenged the Central Dogma. Moreover, by allowing scientists to "knock-down" genes, RNAi can be used to study the loss a single gene quickly and cheaply. It is very difficult to find a published biology paper today that doesn't use this technique.
Wow i just read that headline wrong and had to read it again. I though it said "RIAA Interference Leads To Nobel Prize".
I gave the bat commader a high five.
NOVA had a cool show on TV explaining this to the more dense (like me). Here's an animation that show explaining RNAi:
x pl-flash.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3210/02-e
IAACES (I am a C. elegans scientist) and have had the opportunity to interact with both Craig Mello and Andy Fire (albeit briefly) during and after seminars. An interesting study in contrast.
Craig looks more like a rock star than a Nobel Prize winning scientist in person; he's got the faded blue jeans/shirt hanging out look down pat. He's also ~6'5 and has great hair. Looks aside, Craig is one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. Some of the science he has done is simply mind-blowing (not necesarily the RNAi stuff). Back in the late 90's when Craig was just beginning to work on RNAi I remember going to a seminar of his and thinking "wow, this stuff will win the Nobel Prize one day."
Andy on the other hand looks exactly like the egghead stereotype of an absent-minded professor. Balding, wears thick round glasses, sweater and khakis. While not as physically imposing as Craig, Andy has this incredibly modest demeanor that really demonstrates what it means to be a *top notch* academic. No pretenciousness at all. As a "worm person", I will be eternally grateful for Andy for providing a vector kit for the C. elegans research community essentially free of charge. Even without the RNAi and other research accomplishments the worm community has much to thank Andy for.
NO CARRIER
Ever since the 1920's, scientists knew that DNA was the inheritable component that held the genes. They also knew that protein was the actual workhorse, the microscopic machines that accomplished cellular processes. Eventually, they elucidated that DNA copies itself into RNA, which is then converted into protein. Watson and Crick determined the structure of DNA, and proposed the mechanism for conversion of DNA to RNA.
Since Watson and Crick's time, we have been using the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology:
DNA -> RNA -> protein
Increase the amount of DNA? That means more protein. Increase the amount of RNA? That means more protein.
The big question in biology is now: given that there is usually just one gene for each protein, why do you have drastically different amounts of protein?
What these guys show is that the Dogma really isn't entirely true. Sometimes you can add certain RNAs and make *less* protein. Moreover, they showed that this mechanism was conserved in organisms ranging from yeast to microscopic worms, to humans. In other words, small RNA molecules not only directed the synthesis of protein, they actually could be used to suppress it. An entirely new level of cellular regulation was elucidated.
But to be quite honest, that wasn't the reason they won the Nobel Prize. It is for the experimental implications. Back before RNAi, if I were studying My Favorite Gene, the classical way to do it would be either to find a small molecule inhibitor (very difficult and expensive to find one) or to genetically modify cells to stop making it (also very time consuming and difficult). Now, with RNAi, I have a third, very fast method. Simply construct RNAi using a pretty standardized cookbook, order it online for around $100, and stick it in the cells. See what happens. Experiments that used to take months to years and cost thousands of dollars could now be done in a few days for a few hundred dollars.
I'll put it in terms you guys can probably understand. Research without RNAi is like debugging without a debugger. Yeah, you can do it, but it's often time-consuming and confusing.
> It is very difficult to find a published biology paper today that doesn't use this technique.
So its got a good pagerank.
if only they would find the miRNA that silences the america v. world debates.
Cells manufacture proteins via DNA->RNA->protein. This is more analogous to a nested function application. RNAi is more analogous to removing the outer function that then prevents expression of the intended protein. The cell erases the chalk board by absorbing the unused mRNA. Indeed this points to one of the RNAi central uses - that of infering which gene is doing what - turn one or more off and see what happens to the mouse.
It's way too much of a leap to "humans can be abstracted as computer-replicable algorithms." There is still far more to learn, despite advances in genetic engineering, which by the way you are probably consuming every time you ingest a product containing corn, soy or wheat. And more practically at hand, the promise of genetic medicine brings with it the freight train of eugenics to contend with.
Somehow I read the headline as "GNAA Interference Leads to Nobel Peace Prize."
Just kidding.
Personally this is one of the amazing stories for me. It is an obvious mechanism of regulation for chemist or physicist, but not so obvious for a biologist. The simplicity of theoreetical ideas and easy usage has destined this work for the fast Nobel track from the very beginning.
Well done.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
So I'm checking Slashdot during a break in my studying today and suddenly I see the material I'm covering is posted on the front page!
a tion/animation.htm
Makes me wonder whether it's too early to be tested on the material when the Nobel Prize was awarded AFTER the lecture I recieved on it. That's the field of biology for you though, dramatic changes are possible every year.
The central dogma has really been taking a licking with prions first, and now this.
The article doesn't really go into anything very scientific unfortunately. Here is an animation on RNAi that will hopefully explain the process visually for anyone that may be interested. http://www.nature.com//focus/rnai/animations/anim
One of them (Dr. Mello) works a floor below me at UMass Med, and is a genuinely *nice* guy. It's good to know that getting the Nobel doesn't seem to require being ruthless in your research.
Did anyone else read that as RIAA Iterference Leads To Nobel Prize?
According to top White House Scienticians, we also have to give equal credence to the ISGB3 hypothesis, in which personal characteristics are regulated by an Invisible Sky Giant shouting "BOOGLY BOOGLY BOOGLY".
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The central dogma doesn't refer to quantities ('more DNA = more protein')--it's about the flow of information from the relatively stable medium of DNA, through the transient messenger RNA, into the proteins that do the bulk of the work in the cell. The reason Fire and Mello's work flew in the face of the central dogma is because they showed that some small, non-protein producing RNAs could feed back and downregulate the production of protein from the mRNAs. And what's more, work that's going on right now in micro-RNA (miRNA) shows that most multicellular organisms are already using some of the mechanisms involved in RNAi to regulate. It makes the regulation of gene expression infinitely more subtle and adaptable.
Right here . Although I must beg to differ, with you - the mechanism wasn't obvious to anyone until this study. For what it's worth, it was in the "Letters" section of nature - it wasn't even a full article:
Potent and specific genetic interference by double-stranded RNA in Caenorhabditis elegans
ANDREW FIRE, SIQUN XU, MARY K. MONTGOMERY, STEVEN A. KOSTAS, SAMUEL E. DRIVER & CRAIG C. MELLO
Experimental introduction of RNA into cells can be used in certain biological systems to interfere with the function of an endogenous gene,. Such effects have been proposed to result from a simple antisense mechanism that depends on hybridization between the injected RNA and endogenous messenger RNA transcripts. RNA interference has been used in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to manipulate gene expression,. Here we investigate the requirements for structure and delivery of the interfering RNA. To our surprise, we found that double-stranded RNA was substantially more effective at producing interference than was either strand individually. After injection into adult animals, purified single strands had at most a modest effect, whereas double-stranded mixtures caused potent and specific interference. The effects of this interference were evident in both the injected animals and their progeny. Only a few molecules of injected double-stranded RNA were required per affected cell, arguing against stochiometric interference with endogenous mRNA and suggesting that there could be a catalytic or amplification component in the interference process.
First of all, obligatory Wikipedia reference. As it quite often happens in Wikipedia it provides the most popular yet dry explanation of science.
I would add to this an analogy.
So, the storyline is DNA->mRNA->protein.
The second leg of this classic protein production path is done on ribosomes - 100A brontosaurs of the cell. One of the elements of protein synthesis on these astounding machines is recognition of a triplet of nucleotides (codon) on the matrix RNA (mRNA) by tRNAs (transfer RNAs) that uses anticodon triplet of nucleotides on tRNA to attach it to the corresponding complementary part of the mRNA (that is codon).
This is like lock and key. Lock being a particular place on mRNA you need to unlock in order to advance an mRNA on the ribosome. So essentially the whole process of synthesis of the protein is a long enfilade of rooms with about 4^3 different locks in a computer game of hunting treasures. New lock - new codon. Open the lock with tRNA key, find a treasure - next aminoacid, attach it to the list of posessions (nascent protein chain), rinse, repeat.
The important part of this unlocking is that you are able to remove the key from the lock before proceeding to the next room. Imagine that you have a key chain of 4^3 keys. The easiness of removal is achieved by the fact that there are only 3 nucleotide pairs in this key-lock combination and the fact that the 3D structure of the interacting parts of tRNA and mRNA are a little bit twisted (there are other details like wobbling, that I am omitting now). Bottom line: the complementary 3 nucleotide-lock parts are easy to attach to each other and easy to part from each other.
Now here comes RNAi, which is a monstrous superkey in terms that instead of having an anticodon of 3 nucleotides it is, say, 20 nucleotides matching exactly (or near to exact) the complementary sequence on mRNA. Being 20 nucleotides long it attaches to the mRNA with much stronger force, very hard to remove, so the superkey (in opposite to what one might expect from this analogy) instead of unlocking 20/3=6 doors in this enfilade right away is instead jamming one of the locks.
So you walk with your key-chained set of tRNAs (in reality they are not physically connected, of course) along the enfilade of mRNA's codons, then BOOM! one of the locks jammed by RNAi. Last room, that is completed protein, not reached, no points earned, game over, restart with a different molecule of mRNA. In other words, the expression of particular protein (the amount of proteins of this kind in the cell) is inhibited.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I graduated only about a year ago with a BS (yeah, haha) in Biochemistry. You know, just for fun. I remember this being in my textbooks. Did they just offer some additional proof to a theory or something? We've known about double stranded RNA, RNA enzymes (ribozymes) and RNA proteins... these sorts of molecules have been to known in RNA interference for awhile now. Its predicted that the world was first RNA based, not DNA. A sequence of RNA molecules can be programmed to cleave another RNA sequence (or even its own) at a specific site, and can be programmed to degrade RNA sequences of certain patterns (or can be of similar patterns)
Cells have already been known to use this method rarely, and we've been provoking cells to do it for our own purposes for years.
Dr. Hibbert: Good lord, you're wasting thousands of dollars worth of Interferon!
Homer: And you're "interferon" with our good time! Hehehehe!
What, me worry?
So can I now code DNA to do this...?
#include main() { printf("Hello, World."); }
You are all wrong!
God did it and the bible clearly says so.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
This Nobel prize should have been shared with a plant biologist, Richard Jorgenson and others http://cals.arizona.edu/pls/faculty/jorgensen.html , who initially discovered the phenomena. He discovered it while inserting extra copies of an already existing gene into Petunia. Moreover, co-suppression, the silencing of gene expression, has been well documented in plants. They should give credit where credit is due and they Nobel committee missed a nice opportunity.
Rack another Nobel Prize up for MIT affiliated people And don't forget the physics one as well that guy won today. (MIT++)++;
CNN reported on Sunday morning that investigators of Morgellons Disease (previously discussed) have found plant genetic material in association with it. Could this be horizontal transfer from genmod plants (perhaps through other plant intermediaries)? All of the victims have worked with plants, either as hobby or profession.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Please could you cite any real implications, but I mean real (that even average /. folk can grasp) because saying Experiments could now be done in a few days for a few hundred dollars that really sound like scientific blur agenda. What are you regulating with that "iRNA" and what is that for?
So, it is possible to develop web spinning cells after being bitten by a radioactive spider.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Naaaa.... :-)
it's just that God doesn't plan very well it's code