• HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Friday, February 26, 2021
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Cell Biology

The unknotted strand of life

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
February 3, 2015
in Cell Biology
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

No one had checked before, but RNA, the nucleic acid involved in many cell functions including protein synthesis, appears to be the only “strand of life” not to have knots.Over the years, advances in structural biology have firmly established that both proteins and DNA, although subject to evolutionary selection, do not escape the statistical law whereby a sufficiently long and compacted molecular strand will inevitably be entangled. However, no one to date had looked into the case of RNA.

rna

Pictured is a computer-generated RNA structure tied in a trefoil knot. C. Micheletti et al. screened the several thousand RNA chains in the Protein Data Bank for the presence of knots. Only three knotted instances were found, though their comparison with higher resolution homologs indicates that their knotted state is likely artifactual. The practical absence of physical knots in known RNA chains contrasts with the documented incidence of knots in other biomolecules (proteins and viral DNA) and suggests that thermodynamic or kinetic mechanisms may be at play for minimizing the entanglement of naturally-occurring structured RNAs.

Using the structural description provided for approximately 6,000 RNA chains entered in the Protein Data Bank, a public database that allows scientists to share information about the structure of proteins, DNA and RNA, Cristian Micheletti and Marco Di Stefano from SISSA, and Henri Orland from CEA in Saclay set out on a search for knots.

“We expected this long flexible molecule to behave like the others – DNA and proteins – forming knots with a certain frequency”, explains Micheletti. “Instead we were in for a surprise: out of 6,000 known structures only three cases showed ‘suspected’ knots”.

Suspected, because the three cases could in fact be artefacts. “The database contains multiple descriptions of the same molecule entered by separate research groups using different experimental techniques with varying resolution. Comparing the alternative descriptions of our ‘knotted RNA’ candidates we found no instances of knots. That the three cases may be artefacts is further confirmed by the fact that in all three instances the alternative, unknotted, descriptions were based on the most accurate technique, i.e., x-ray crystallography”.

Naturally occurring RNA is therefore a type of molecule that tends to take on particularly simple geometric configurations. “Computer predictions demonstrate that if we were to re-arrange naturally occurring RNA sequences randomly we would obtain far more entangled and complex structures”, explains Micheletti. “The underlying reasons for this disarming simplicity are probably manifold”, continues Di Stefano. “It is plausible that the chemical composition of naturally occurring RNAs evolved to ensure reliable and rapid folding into simple, faithfully reproducible forms allowing smooth processing by the molecular machinery that decodes them to synthesise proteins. Any knots would negatively influence the process”. Now further investigations are needed to better understand the anti-knot properties of RNA.

Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA).

Share12Tweet7Share2ShareShareShare1

Related Posts

IMAGE

Amino acid recycling in cells: Autophagy helps cells adapt to changing conditions

December 10, 2020
IMAGE

Ferrets, cats and civets most susceptible to coronavirus infection after humans

December 10, 2020

Reductive stress in neuroblastoma cells aggregates protein and impairs neurogenesis

December 8, 2020

Deep Longevity publishes an epigenetic aging clock of unprecedented accuracy

December 8, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

POPULAR NEWS

  • IMAGE

    Terahertz accelerates beyond 5G towards 6G

    638 shares
    Share 255 Tweet 160
  • People living with HIV face premature heart disease and barriers to care

    81 shares
    Share 32 Tweet 20
  • Global analysis suggests COVID-19 is seasonal

    38 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 10
  • HIV: an innovative therapeutic breakthrough to optimize the immune system

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

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

Follow us

Tags

Cell BiologycancerTechnology/Engineering/Computer SciencePublic HealthMedicine/HealthInfectious/Emerging DiseasesEcology/EnvironmentMaterialsBiologyGeneticsChemistry/Physics/Materials SciencesClimate Change

Recent Posts

  • Samara Polytech scientists have patented the TopCryst.Find_Topology service
  • Explainable AI: A must for nuclear nonproliferation, national security
  • Novel catalysts improve efficiency of urea synthesis at ambient conditions
  • SARS-CoV-2 mutations in competition
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

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

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

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

Log In