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Studies on RNA interference earned a Nobel Prize for Andrew Fire and Craig Mello in 2006, and another Nobel for studies on the transcription of RNA to Roger Kornberg in the same year. The discovery of gene regulatory RNAs has led to attempts to develop drugs made of RNA, such as siRNA, to silence genes. [83]
The DNA sequence from which a functional non-coding RNA is transcribed is often called an RNA gene. Abundant and functionally important types of non-coding RNAs include transfer RNAs (tRNAs) and ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs), as well as small RNAs such as microRNAs , siRNAs , piRNAs , snoRNAs , snRNAs , exRNAs , scaRNAs and the long ncRNAs such as ...
Both types of pentoses in DNA and RNA are in their β-furanose (closed five-membered ring) form and they define the identity of a nucleic acid. DNA is defined by containing 2'-deoxy-ribose nucleic acid while RNA is defined by containing ribose nucleic acid. [1] In some occasions, DNA and RNA may contain some minor bases.
They include elements such as pseudogenes, segmental duplications, binding sites and RNA genes. [28] Pseudogenes are mutated copies of protein-coding genes that lost their coding function due to a disruption in their open reading frame (ORF), making them untranslatable. [28] They may be identified using one of the following two methods: [46]
Ribosomal RNA characteristics are important in evolution, thus taxonomy and medicine. rRNA is one of only a few gene products present in all cells. [45] For this reason, genes that encode the rRNA are sequenced to identify an organism's taxonomic group, calculate related groups, and estimate rates of species divergence. [68]
The repertoire of tRNA genes varies widely between species, with some bacteria having between 20 and 30 genes while complex eukaryotes could have thousands. [6] tRNAs have a site for amino acid attachment, and a site called an anticodon. The anticodon is an RNA triplet complementary to the mRNA triplet that codes for their cargo amino acid.
Efforts to understand how proteins are encoded began after DNA's structure was discovered in 1953. The key discoverers, English biophysicist Francis Crick and American biologist James Watson, working together at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, hypothesied that information flows from DNA and that there is a link between DNA and proteins. [2]
An ortholog of the Xist RNA gene in humans has been identified in mice. [18] [19] This ortholog encodes a 15 kb Xist transcript that is also localized in the nucleus. However, the ortholog does not feature conserved repeats. [20] The Xist RNA gene is located within the Xist Inactivation Center (XIC), which plays a major role in X-inactivation. [21]