• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Tuesday, October 7, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Chemistry

Dual personalities visualized for shape-shifting molecule

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
May 6, 2020
in Chemistry
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0
IMAGE
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Australia

Australian and US researchers have made a breakthrough in understanding the structure of a key genetic molecule, called RNA, and revealing for the first time how these changes impact RNA’s function.

Publishing in the journal Nature, the research team developed a bioinformatics technique to resolve separate structures of RNA rather than viewing them as a ‘blur’ that averaged multiple structures. This underpinned their discovery that the structure of RNA can influence how cells function.

RNA is a DNA-like molecule that encodes genetic information. Certain viruses – including HIV and SARS-CoV2 – use RNA as their genetic material. The team were able to apply the techniques they developed to reveal how the structure of HIV’s RNA genome influences which proteins the virus produces.

The international collaborative team was led by Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researcher Dr Vincent Corbin together with Mr Phil Tomezsko and Professor Silvi Rouskin at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Boston (US). The research team also included the Institute’s Computational Biology Theme Leader Professor Tony Papenfuss and mathematician and PhD student Mr Lachlan McIntosh.

At a glance

    – RNA is a molecule that carries genetic information, controlling how cells function.

    – A collaborative research team has used advanced computational methods to detect different structures of RNA, which until now could not be distinguished.

    – Using HIV as a model system, the team discovered that different structures of RNA influenced how the virus behaved. This is the first time changes in RNA structure have been shown to influence how this molecule controls cells’ function.

RNA’s shifting shapes

RNA is a molecule found in all living things that carries genetic information. RNA is an important regulator of how cells function, directly controlling which proteins are produced in cells, and can also switch genes on and off.

RNA molecules have a two-dimensional structure which influences how the genetic information contained within them can be accessed, said Dr Corbin, who led the project’s bioinformatics research.

“The big question in RNA biology has been whether RNA molecules have a single, constant structure, or whether they can shift between different structures – and what this means for the function of a particular RNA molecule,” he said.

“Our collaborators, led by Professor Silvi Rouskin, developed a technique for deciphering the structure of RNA molecules. We wanted to understand whether what we were detecting was a single structure of RNA, or an ‘average’ structure that blurs multiple different structures together.

“It’s a bit like seeing red and yellow stripes, or blurring them together and thinking you can see orange,” he said.

By developing a computational algorithm, the team were able to detect and measure the amount of different RNA structures. “We could detect these both in a test tube and in living cells, so we next looked at whether these structures influenced how RNA functioned,” Dr Corbin said.

Changing RNA function

When RNA is produced in cells, it starts in a longer form that is ‘spliced’ or trimmed to remove unwanted parts.

“RNA splicing can influence how it encodes proteins,” Dr Corbin said. “There are many examples of how altered RNA splicing influences how a cell functions – and in some cases, changes in RNA splicing have been associated with cancer or neurodegenerative diseases.”

Certain viruses use RNA for their genome, including HIV and SARS-CoV2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19). In the case of HIV, RNA splicing influences which protein the virus produces – which changes at different stages of the virus’s lifecycle.

“Using the HIV genome as a model system, we looked at whether RNA structure influences how HIV’s RNA is spliced. We discovered that RNA structure was a critical determinant of RNA splicing in HIV, and influenced which viral proteins were produced,” Dr Corbin said.

“This is the first clear evidence of how RNA structure can control RNA function. The techniques we have developed have opened up a new field of research into the role of RNA structure in regulating the function of cells.”

Professor Papenfuss said the research showed how finely tuned biological systems are. “This study how very subtle changes in one tiny molecule can have big implications for the function of a virus. By using computational biology to unravel these changes, we’ve made a significant discovery about how viruses – and potentially human cells – function, which may underpin future discoveries about health and disease.”

###

The research was supported by the US National Institutes of Health, the Smith Family Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council and the Victorian Government.

Media Contact
Eva Frederick

Science Communications Officer

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2253-5

Tags: AIDS/HIVBiochemistryBiologyCell BiologyGeneticsMedicine/HealthMolecular BiologyVirology
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

blank

Enantioconvergent Radical Addition Creates Vicinal Stereocenters

October 7, 2025
Bright Red-NIR Glow from Carbodicarbene Borenium Ions

Bright Red-NIR Glow from Carbodicarbene Borenium Ions

October 6, 2025

Transforming Biogas Waste into an Effective Solution for Ammonium Pollution Cleanup

October 6, 2025

Scientists Incorporate Waveguide Physics into Metasurfaces to Unlock Advanced Light Manipulation

October 6, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Sperm MicroRNAs: Crucial Mediators of Paternal Exercise Capacity Transmission

    403 shares
    Share 161 Tweet 101
  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    96 shares
    Share 38 Tweet 24
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    94 shares
    Share 38 Tweet 24
  • Ohio State Study Reveals Protein Quality Control Breakdown as Key Factor in Cancer Immunotherapy Failure

    75 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Physics-Informed Deep Learning Accelerates Agrivoltaic Irradiance Calculations

Impact of Lymph Node Count in Laryngeal Cancer Surgery

Plin4 Controls Neuronal Lipid Droplets, Ferroptosis

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 63 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.