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Come explore the fascinating world of cellular RNA Molecules with Mount Holyoke College Biochemistry 330 students.

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Transposons in reverse: a blessing or a curse?

Summary of main points Retrotransposons are a type of mobile genetic element (MGE) that can copy and paste themselves multiple times throughout the genome using an RNA intermediate. Retrotransposons are widely considered to be harmful and bad for cells. They resemble retroviruses and our cells have developed mechanisms to protect against retrotransposition.  The prevalence of retrotransposons throughout the tree of life suggests they are evolutionary important. This contrasts the negative effects that can cause in cells.  Retrotransposons are suggested to generate more genetic diversity locally and globally in a genome, which is consistent with their prevalence in humans among other species. The glossary at the end of the post may have some helpful information should you need it :)  Figure 1: The mechanism of DNA transposition. In the past ten years alone, the study of mobile genetic elements (MGEs), or DNA sequences that can move around within a genom...
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Virus-encoded Circular RNAs: A brand-new class of gene regulators

Virus-encoded Circular RNAs:  A brand-new class of gene regulators What is a normal shape of general RNAs you have learned about before? Are all types of RNAs linear as we often think? The answer is NO! Different from other members in the RNA-family, circular RNA (circRNA) is a novel class of RNA that is not linear. Instead, it forms a covalently closed continuous loop in which the 3'end and 5'end in an RNA molecule are joined together. In eukaryotes, pre-mRNA goes through processing which the 5'end is capped with 7MetG and the 3'end is added with a lot of adenines. With circRNAs, the absence of the two ends as well as the polyadenylated tail makes circRNAs resistant to degradation and more stable than most linear RNAs in cells. With this distinct shape, circRNAs display many original properties that other RNAs don't have. Therefore, circRNA is one of the most actively fields in RNA-targeted therapeutic treatments of research in recent years. C...
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IRES: The Trojan horse of Hepatitis C

Ana was 22 years old when she found out she had it… Hepatitis C! Unlike others her age, she hadn’t yet had a boyfriend, gotten tattoos in non sterile conditions, damaged her liver by excessive drinking in college, or shared needles to inject drugs, all of which are ways one can get the disease (1). All she had done was receive a kidney (a solid organ) from her uncle who was born in 1962 in Japan, one of the few industrialized countries with high Hepatitis C rates (2). She first noticed the massive bruises on her arms and legs 6 months ago followed by the yellowing of her eyes (jaundice). Her doctor thought it was her body rejecting the kidney and causing her to have reduced platelets but after getting a biopsy, it turned out her liver had become cirrhotic and was failing. Cirrhosis is a chronic disease that leads to inflammation which, over time, replaces healthy liver cells with scar tissue. It takes about 20 to 30 years for this to happen (or faster if alcohol is drunk or if someon...
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