Mimicking natural evolution in a test tube, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have devised an enzyme with a unique property that might have been crucial to the origin of life on Earth.
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 29, 2014
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An extremely small RNA molecule created by a University of Colorado at Boulder team can catalyze a key reaction needed to synthesize proteins, the building blocks of life. The findings could be a substantial step toward understanding ...
Biochemistry
Feb 22, 2010
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The beginning of life on Earth and its evolution over billions of years continue to intrigue researchers worldwide. The central dogma or the directional flow of genetic information from a deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA) template ...
Molecular & Computational biology
3 hours ago
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65
RNA molecules are real all-rounders. They transfer the genetic information from the DNA in the cell. They regulate the activity of genes. And some of them have a catalytic effect: just like enzymes, they enable biochemical ...
Biochemistry
Sep 4, 2023
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243
Enzymes enable biochemical reactions that would otherwise not take place on their own. In nature, it is mostly proteins that function as enzymes. However, other molecules can also perform enzymatic reactions—for example ...
Biotechnology
Oct 28, 2020
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With their first ever RNA-based inducible system for switching on genes in the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), two researchers from the University of Konstanz have closed a significant gap in genetic switches. ...
Biotechnology
Jan 30, 2019
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79
The display screens of modern televisions, cell phones and computer monitors rely on liquid crystals—materials that flow like liquids but have molecules oriented in crystal-like structures. However, liquid crystals may ...
Nanomaterials
Oct 3, 2018
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130
Scientists have created a new type of genetic replication system which demonstrates how the first life on Earth—in the form of RNA—could have replicated itself. The scientists from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory ...
Biotechnology
May 15, 2018
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219
(Phys.org)—The nucleic acid RNA is an essential part of the critical process by which the cells in our bodies manufacture proteins. But noncoding RNAs also exist whose sequences, while not converted into proteins, play ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 21, 2012
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(Phys.org)—A team of chemistry and applied sciences researchers from several universities in the United States has shown that RNA fragments torn apart in the lab work together to reassemble themselves. This finding, the ...
