Yale Researchers Find New RNA Structures

Science Daily is reporting that researchers from Yale have discovered "very large RNA structures within previously unstudied bacteria that appear crucial to basic biological functions such as helping viruses infect cells or allowing genes to 'jump' to different parts of the chromosome." Ronald Breaker, professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale, stated that this would be equivalent to protein scientists finding a whole new class of enzymes. "The Breaker laboratory has used the explosion of DNA sequence information and new computer programs to discover six of the top twelve largest bacterial RNAs just in the last several years. One of the newly discovered RNAs, called GOLLD, is the third largest and most complex RNA discovered to date, and appears to be used by viruses that infect bacteria. Another large RNA revealed in the study, called HEARO, has a genetic structure that suggests it is part of a type of 'jumping gene' that can move to new locations in the bacterial chromosome."

Comments

Re:Curious choice of analogies

[ColdWetDog]

Here, let me help. This brief blurb discusses Dr. Breaker's research history a bit better and shows where this current research stems from. He is a proponent of the "RNA World" hypothesis and actually has done some seminal research in the field.

Back to the car.... Hmmm.... OK - the RNA World hypothesis states that the first nucleic acid (the chemical responsible to for transmitting genetic information) was RNA. Breaker's hypothesis is that if that is the case, one should find RNA-based control structures somewhere since they are ancestral and nature loves to preserve ancestral things (don't recreate the wheel very often and if you do, keep a copy of the old wheel stashed somewhere).

He did find evidence of this in the coenzyme that helps vitamin B12 activity (see the previous link). So, perhaps these new RNA molecules have some sort of control function.

So, it's like finding a whole class of levers and rods that allow your car to do things when you were expecting that buttons and switches did all of the work.

Does that help?