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Chinese Scientists Discover Structural Basis of Pre-mRNA Splicing

Posted by timothy on from the because-tab-a-loves-slot-b dept.

hackingbear writes: On August 21st, the research team led by Prof. Yigong Shi from School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University in China published two side-by-side research articles in Science, reporting the long-sought-after structure of a yeast spliceosome at 3.6 angstrom resolution determined by single particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), and the molecular mechanism of pre-messenger RNA splicing. Until now, decades of genetic and biochemical experiments have identified almost all proteins in spliceosome and uncovered some functions. Yet, the structure remained a mystery for a long time. The works, primarily performed by Dr. Chuangye Yan, and Ph.D students Jing Hang and Ruixue Wan under Prof. Yigong Shi's supervision, settled this Holy Grail question and established the structural basis for the related area. This work was supported by funds from the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

48 comments

  1. Re: impact? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They spliced the monosodium together. Its now DSG.

  2. Remember when America had science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Those were good years.

    1. Re: Remember when America had science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      At least we don't cover up our history like they do.

      +1 agree. quality of lies much better here

    2. Re: Remember when America had science? by Tablizer · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      At least we don't cover up our history like they do.

      Instead, we outsource Fox News and Rush L. to rewrite it. Those with money/power always find a way to tilt history.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    3. Re:Remember when America had science? by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      We still do. It's just that many of those scientists end up going back to their home country to be back with family.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    4. Re:Remember when America had science? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      And remember when we could apply science, American or otherwise, to the problems we face without the default reaction being total gibbering fear?

    5. Re:Remember when America had science? by the+gnat · · Score: 1

      We still do. It's just that many of those scientists end up going back to their home country to be back with family.

      Yigong Shi was in fact a tenured professor at Princeton until a few years ago. I think the Chinese gov't. basically threw gobs of money at him to move to Tsinghua. Before, he was just one of many excellent structural biologists in the US; now, he's arguably the foremost Chinese structural biologist. (Downside: exchanging Princeton faculty meetings for CCP oversight; I'm not sure which sounds worse to me.)

    6. Re:Remember when America had science? by m00sh · · Score: 0

      Those were good years.

      But you can compensate for it by making racist jokes.

      Seriously though, you mean when only America had science. It is a good thing that a country with a billion people are doing scientific achievements. We should be ecstatic that China is in the game and the rate of scientific progress for humanity will increase by multiple factors. The science performed by a Chinese scientist versus an American one doesn't matter, everyone can benefit.

    7. Re:Remember when America had science? by TheSync · · Score: 1

      Perhaps we should be happy that global economic growth is allowing hundreds of thousands of new biologists to study the science?

      As Julian Simone noted, the ultimate resource is not something like oil, or copper, or water, but instead the ultimate resource is the power of the human mind - and the more human minds that we can bring online to solving problems, the better off the world will be.

      Anyway there is plenty of science in the US. In 2013, two Americans and one America-based scientist won the nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine (James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman, and Thomas C. Sudhof or Yale, Berkeley, and Stanford) for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic.

    8. Re:Remember when America had science? by the+gnat · · Score: 1

      This is just nonsensical. The vast majority of articles like this still come from the US/EU/Japan, and most of the technology was developed outside China. In fact, the only reason they're able to do this kind of research is that the last few years have seen exceptional improvements in molecular EM due to a combination of better software and direct electron detectors. In fact, I looked through their methods, and they're using a microscope made by a US/international company, a detector from Japan, and software written in the US and UK. The hardware just requires sufficient funding, the software is free.

      So these papers aren't particularly innovative; they're high-profile because it's an important scientific question, but it was only a matter of time before someone decided to tackle it (and only in the last few years has it really been possible). There are generally more questions like this than people who have time to answer them, so it's really easy (intellectually speaking) to pick a random problem, throw money at it, and collect the Science/Nature/Cell paper. And that's kind of the state a lot of Chinese research is in.

      I don't mean to sound critical of this work itself - it looks very solid and Yigong Shi has an excellent reputation (he used to be in the US). But all it proves is that China can do research on par with other industrial nations when it wants to.

    9. Re:Remember when America had science? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Until the results are skewed in favor of the interests of the state.

  3. big deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    new structures are found all the time. it's hard work. but what's the big deal about this one? slow news evening, slashdot?

  4. Re: In English Please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Go back to CNN and let us literate folks enjoy science.

  5. In english, why is this a holy grail: by cartesius · · Score: 5, Informative

    From TFA: Besides the basic biological importance of spliceosome, numerous diseases are related to the dysfunction of spliceosomal regulation or the splicing mistakes. Almost 35 percent of genetic disorder is resulted from wrong splicing

  6. Can one do science without racism ? by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Is it so hard to do science without having to mixing in all the racist remarks?

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If it were American scientists and some Chinese made hamburger jokes, would it be "racist"? I don't know what the exact algorithm/formula is for determining "racism".

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We need joke scientists on this, stat.

    3. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      > If it were American scientists and some Chinese made hamburger jokes, would it be "racist"?

      Of course not! It would be hilarious and fair, especially if there were hateful references to obesity!

      --SJW

    4. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Would adding Chris Christie into that joke increase or decrease the racism score?

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      Table-ized A.I.
    5. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, it would.*

      If you make a comment whose only connection to the subject matter is the race, then you have made a racist comment. This guy saw the word "Chinese" and asked about Dim Sum. There is literally no other connection to Dim Sum.

      You can be racist still with more connection, but with just this connection it's a sealed deal (the tenuousness of the connection also makes it not even slightly funny).

      * You could go down a rabbit hole about whether it's technically "race" vs. some other ism, but that means you're pedantically missing the point, because it's not substantially different.

    6. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is it so hard to read a silly joke without mixing in all the problems in the world? Seriously, do you even know what racism means?

    7. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if you're a SJW.

    8. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If you read a food joke as a racist comment, then you're a SJW dumbass. Can you cite a genetic connection between ethnicity and cuisine?

    9. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Last time I checked Chinese was not a race. Have they become their own race now?

    10. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The food is connected to a culture you idiot. And Chinese is not a race.

    11. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      I would call that "culturally insensitive" perhaps, but NOT "racism". The R word is used too often. That joke is not demeaning in any definitive or clear sense. If I had implied that kind of food was dangerous or foul, I could see a real reason to complain.

      I don't see associating the USA with hamburgers or cowboys offensive in any way to USA citizens unless negative traits were implied to be associated with them, such as obesity (burger) or excess bravado (cowboy).

      I see 3 possible levels of association:

      1. Associating situations with an ethnic trait or convention
      2. Demeaning of an ethnic trait or convention
      3. Demeaning of an ethnic group directly ("the X people are bad").

      To be on the safe side, we could say "never do #1", but that's PC overkill. If I were an international diplomat, yes #1 probably should be ruled out. But, it's slashdot; we should be able to have a little bit of fun.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    12. Re: Can one do science without racism ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What a world, the Chinese are rapidly becoming the leading authority for scientific discovery, while the Americans are doing a full-180 nazi-communist power grab.

    13. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure it's racist, but it's certainly a *stupid* joke. (As opposed to a "stupid *joke*".)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    14. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Chinese and American aren't races.

    15. Re:Can one do science without racism ? by CmdrTamale · · Score: 1

      Dark meat is juicier?

  7. Now let's wait and see by Chas · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Whether or not this is a genuine discovery, or yet another Chinese Hoax.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
    1. Re: Now let's wait and see by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      å"å"

    2. Re:Now let's wait and see by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whether or not this is a genuine discovery, or yet another Chinese Hoax.

      Given that the western medical community seems to have problems with repeatability, here we go with the pot calling the kettle black again.

    3. Re:Now let's wait and see by Chas · · Score: 1

      Not saying the western medical community doesn't.

      But we keep seeing these big, game-changing announcements out of "eastern" medical researchers. Only to have them turn out to be massive frauds.

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
    4. Re:Now let's wait and see by the+gnat · · Score: 1

      But we keep seeing these big, game-changing announcements out of "eastern" medical researchers. Only to have them turn out to be massive frauds.

      This isn't a "game-changing" announcement, not the way (for instance) various stem-cell-related discoveries were. It's an impressive technical accomplishment, and it certainly expands our understanding of this system, but it's nothing revolutionary or unforseen, and it's also really "basic" in the sense of "basic research" - foundational, not applied.

  8. Re: In English Please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That was a bit presumptuous.

  9. Legit or not? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this one of those articles that fall under the category of (since blah 90s blah scientific papers have been more accurate now that researches are forced to register and check their findings) papers??

  10. What is the definition of a 'joke'? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not trying to nitpick here, but I am genuinely curious of how you define 'joke'

    Is calling the Chinese 'dim sum' a 'joke'? Is that even 'funny'?

    How about calling the Blacks 'nigger'? Really funny, right?

    TFA talks about someone in China successfully deciphering the atomic structure of something that many scientists,all over the world, have been trying to figuring out, for decades. The fact that it was the Chinese who done that discovery is itself only a side issue - as the main issue is the new finding, and how that finding can help the world's scientists in tackling many new problems.

    Why then people wanna home in to the race / ethnicity of those who did the discovery?

    Or, to put it another way --- does that mean that whenever the Chinese made any scientific advancement it must be ridiculed, just because they are Chinese?

    Is that a joke?

    1. Re:What is the definition of a 'joke'? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They didn't call someone dim sum you moron. And there's nothing racist about referencing a Chinese dish.

  11. Wut? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    This has nothing to do with politics. It should be on some nerd Web site! >:-(

    Before you down mod me, go review the front page.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  12. Nice job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some hard work, some luck, and now we have the structure of an important molecule.

    What's next?

    Maybe some sims and visualization tools to understand how it operates in detail.
    (And maybe how it almost operates in the RP case)

  13. INS is working to change that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By chasing good students away and making attending U.S. conferences a pain.

    I know the Perimeter Institute in Canada has benefitted a lot from this.