The central dogma of molecular biology, as proposed in 1970 by Francis Crick and James Watson, holds that genetic information is transferred from DNA to functional proteins by way of messenger RNA (mRNA). This suggests that mRNA has but a single role, that being to encode for proteins.
Now, a cancer genetics team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) suggests there is much more to RNA than meets the eye.
In a study appearing in the June 24, 2010 issue of Nature, the authors describe a new regulatory role for RNA — independent of their protein-coding function – that relies on their ability to communicate with one another. Of potentially even greater significance, because this new function also holds true for thousands of noncoding RNAs, the discovery dramatically increases the known pool of functional genetic information…
“Because this new function does not depend on the blueprint that RNAs harbor in their protein-encoding nucleotide sequence, the discovery additionally holds true for the thousands of noncoding RNA molecules in the cell,” explains senior author Pier Paolo Pandolfi, MD, PhD, Director of Research at the BIDMC Cancer Center and George C. Reisman Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.”This means that not only have we discovered a new language for mRNA, but we have also translated the previously unknown language of up to 17,000 pseudogenes and at least 10,000 long non-coding (lnc) RNAs. Consequently, we now know the function of an estimated 30,000 new entities, offering a novel dimension by which cellular and tumor biology can be regulated, and effectively doubling the size of the functional genome.”…
July 12, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Now, if they could only decipher the unfamiliar proteins on filoviruses like Ebola, perhaps these terrible diseases could be more easily contained.
July 15, 2010 at 11:39 am
Well, they are using some interesting technologies in the research of vaccines:
“In yet another experiment, they managed to freeze one of the antibodies in the process of attaching to and neutralizing the virus, getting an atomic-level image in a process called x-ray crystallography.”
Antibody finding may help in quest for AIDS vaccine
August 26, 2010 at 12:29 am
It’s interesting to me that the use of these and similar methods seem to destroy all of the weaker forms of disease while allowing the strongest to generate in an environment virtually without competition. These circumstances are ideal, evolutionarily speaking, for creating “superbugs,” strains of viral and bacterial epidemics that are capable of resisting a wide array of our present solutions. In other words, vaccines put themselves out of business.
I have recently learned about alternative treatments like bacteriophages, which seem more promising. Of course, phage therapy would only deal with bacterial infections, but what do you think about this apparent problem with the use of our present methods?
August 26, 2010 at 8:28 am
I don’t think it’s true that the ones that survive are actually the strongest forms of the disease. They usually simply lack part of the shape that the other forms of the disease have, or else lack a control mechanism that the original form had. They are only more “fit” when compared to an environment that has the vaccine than in one without it. Occasionally a strain may be more lethal to its host, but lethality of a disease does not indicate it’s fitness – a disease that kills it’s host loses its source of sustenance.
One well known method to deal with this is to use different (generally less effective) drugs for a time, or to reduce the use of the vaccine to allow the original forms to dominate once again (because in a natural environment, these are actually the strongest forms). When the original form becomes predominant once again, you can go back to using the most effective drugs.
Bacteriophages are interesting, but I don’t see how they would bypass the issues that are present with traditional vaccines, antibiotics, and antiviral drugs. For a bacteriophage to be effective it must target specific bacteria, and specific sequences on the bacteria. The same types of mutations that make other drugs ineffective will thus be able to make bacteriophages ineffective. The fact that bacteriophages represent an alternative method is, however, promising for bacterial treatments. The more treatment options that are available, the more options you have available for optimizing treatment sequences in the general population and the better your overall results will be.
August 30, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Thank you for the well-considered response… I would say that, though it’s true that bacteria eventually adapt to phages, it is also the case that viruses are adaptive. There always seem to arise new phages to parasitically make use of newer strains of bacteria. A good source for them is in sewage water, particularly in the sewage of the facilities that work on phage research.