An unexpected find has enabled important progress to be made in the battle against harmful bacteria. An international team of researchers, led by Professor Peter Fineran from the University of Otago, investigated a particular ...
Cell & Microbiology
22 hours ago
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11
Transcription factors regulate gene expression by binding specific sequences on DNA, which is an essential step to producing messenger RNAs from protein-coding genes. Denes Hnisz's lab, in collaboration with Martin Vingron's ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 5, 2024
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2
A recent study looking at the molecular foundation of myrtle rust reveals how the pathogen breaks into a host plant and how the host plant responds. This insight will inform the design of useful tools to prevent future break-ins ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 5, 2024
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Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a biologically important type of molecule that consists of a long chain of nucleotide units. Each nucleotide consists of a nitrogenous base, a ribose sugar, and a phosphate. RNA is very similar to DNA, but differs in a few important structural details: in the cell, RNA is usually single-stranded, while DNA is usually double-stranded; RNA nucleotides contain ribose while DNA contains deoxyribose (a type of ribose that lacks one oxygen atom); and RNA has the base uracil rather than thymine that is present in DNA.
RNA is transcribed from DNA by enzymes called RNA polymerases and is generally further processed by other enzymes. RNA is central to the synthesis of proteins. Here, a type of RNA called messenger RNA carries information from DNA to structures called ribosomes. These ribosomes are made from proteins and ribosomal RNAs, which come together to form a molecular machine that can read messenger RNAs and translate the information they carry into proteins. There are many RNAs with other roles – in particular regulating which genes are expressed, but also as the genomes of most viruses.
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