RNA in the news

Today's New York Times Science section features an article on the increasing attention being paid to forms of RNA in molecular research....

The central dogma of biology has been that DNA makes messenger RNA, messenger RNA makes proteins, and proteins do everything else that needs to be done in a living cell. Though still unchallenged, that dogma has begun to seem less comprehensive, after an explosion of findings about regulatory RNA, a different sort of RNA that is produced by animal and plant cells and by viruses.

Regulatory RNA is turning out to be a major player in some of a cell's most vital activities. It guards the integrity of the DNA in the egg and sperm cells that pass hereditary information to the next generation. It may help determine what genes are accessible to each type of cell, a crucial choice for multicellular animals that require a liver cell to read off one set of genes and a brain cell to be governed by a different set. And it coordinates suites of genes that may be under different control systems but need to act together in response to sudden stresses.

Much more information on regulatory RNA is available through NCBI's Entrez search engine, which searches dozens of valuable, freely accessible life sciences databases. Click here to check it out--see links to book chapters, articles, and gene/sequence information.