An Israeli genomics-based drug and diagnostic discovery company, Compugen Ltd., has announced a breakthrough that will help determine the nature of changes that sometimes occur after DNA has been transcribed into RNA for transmission to create proteins in mammals.
The findings, to be published in the Nature Biotechnology journal (pre-release publication online at http://www.nature.com/), increase the number of known adenosine to inosine (A to I) RNA editing sites (where the changes occur) in the human transcriptome from approximately 100 to more than 10,000.
RNA editing is a type of RNA modification in which small nucleotide changes occur after DNA has been transcribed into RNA. Although it is known that RNA editing is an essential factor for mammalian development and recent evidence has suggested that it may be a fairly common phenomenon, prior to the Compugen announcement, it was generally believed to be impossible to systematically discover such sites with current experimental and computational procedures and tools.
In A to I RNA editing there is a site-specific conversion of adenosine to inosine. The deficiency or misregulation in this type of editing has been associated with a number of neurological diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or "Lou Gehrig's disease"), malignant gliomas, epilepsy, and depression. While many of the effects of RNA editing are still unknown, it is believed that it could significantly affect gene expression and regulation, and may provide a mechanism for controlling RNAi.
The findings, to be published in the Nature Biotechnology journal (pre-release publication online at http://www.nature.com/), increase the number of known adenosine to inosine (A to I) RNA editing sites (where the changes occur) in the human transcriptome from approximately 100 to more than 10,000.
RNA editing is a type of RNA modification in which small nucleotide changes occur after DNA has been transcribed into RNA. Although it is known that RNA editing is an essential factor for mammalian development and recent evidence has suggested that it may be a fairly common phenomenon, prior to the Compugen announcement, it was generally believed to be impossible to systematically discover such sites with current experimental and computational procedures and tools.
In A to I RNA editing there is a site-specific conversion of adenosine to inosine. The deficiency or misregulation in this type of editing has been associated with a number of neurological diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or "Lou Gehrig's disease"), malignant gliomas, epilepsy, and depression. While many of the effects of RNA editing are still unknown, it is believed that it could significantly affect gene expression and regulation, and may provide a mechanism for controlling RNAi.