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futurity_sci_tech 00776.txt

#RNA readout tool could lead to tougher crops Scientists have developed a method that enables more-accurate prediction of how RNA molecules fold within living cells. The findings may shed new light on how plants as well as other living organisms respond to environmental conditions. Potential implications of the methodology for human health include for example learning how an infection-induced fever could affect the RNA structures of both humans and pathogens. A paper by the research team led by Penn State s Sarah M. Assmann professor of biology and Philip Bevilacqua professor of chemistry appears in Nature. cientists have studied a few individual RNA molecules but now we have data on almost all the RNA molecules in a cell more than 10000 different RNASASSMANN says. e are the first to determine on a genome-wide basis the structures of the RNA molecules in a plant or in any living organism. emperature and drought are among the environmental stress factors that affect the structure of RNA molecules thereby influencing how genes are xpressedhow their functions are turned turned on or off. limate change is predicted to cause increasingly extreme and unpredictable heat waves and droughts which would impact our food crops in part by affecting the structures of their RNA molecules and so influencing their translation into proteinsbevilacqua says. he more we understand about how environmental factors affect RNA structure and thereby influence gene expression the more we may be breed able to or develop with biotechnological methods crops that are more resistant to those stresses. Such crops which could perform better under more-marginal conditions could help feed the world s growing population. he project involved determining the structures of the varieties of RNA molecules in a plant named Arabidopsis thaliana. This plant is used worldwide as a model species for scientific research. Arabidopsis thaliana commonly known as mouse-ear cress is an ideal organism for RNA studies the researchers say because it is the first plant species to have its full genome sequenced and has the greatest number of genetic tools available. RNA is the intermediate molecule between DNA and proteins in all living things. It is a critical component in the pathway of gene expression which controls an organism s function. Unlike the double-stranded DNA molecule which is compressed into cells by twisting and wrapping around proteins RNA is stranded single and folds back on itself. The researchers set out to answer the question How exactly does RNA fold in a cell and how does that folding regulate gene function? e needed a tool to answer that questionsays Bevilacqua. hat tool involves introducing a chemical into the plant that can modify some segments of the RNA but not others which then gives a readout of the structure of the RNA. Using this technique we can figure out which classes of genes are associated with certain RNA structural traits. And we can try to understand how these RNA structural changes relate to certain biological functions.?Previously researchers would query the structures of individual RNAS in a cell one by one and it was a tedious processsays Assmann. ou can t abstract rules or generalities about how RNAS are behaving just from knowing the structures of one or a few RNAS you can t get a pattern. ow that we have genome-wide information for a particular organism we can start to abstract patterns of how RNA structure influences gene expression and ultimately plant function. Other scientists can query their organisms of interest and ask what rules they can abstract. Are there universal rules that will be true for all organisms for how RNA structure influences gene expression? evilacqua adds ecause RNA is so central in its role in gene regulation the tools we ve developed can be transferred to scientists who are working with essentially any biological system. he Human Frontiers Science Program (HFSP) Penn State Eberly College of Science and the Penn State Huck Institutes funded the research. Source: Penn Stateyou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license t

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