As you may have read from the title this article talks about a new type of gene regulation. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), have discovered a type of gene regulation never before observed in mammals. The UCSC researchers discovered a ribozyme (RNA enzyme or catalytic RNA) that controls the activity of an important family of genes in several different species. A ribozyme is an RNA molecule that catalyzes a chemical reaction.
A newly discovered role for the hammerhead ribozyme was found embedded within certain genes in mice, rats, horses, platypuses, and other mammals as well. The genes are involved in the immune response and bone metabolism. Monika Martick, a UCSC postdoctoral researcher and first author of the Nature paper says, "the unique thing about these ribozymes is that they control the expression of the genes they're embedded in."
In the genes studied by Martick and coauthor Lucas Horan, a graduate student in molecular, cell, and developmental biology at UCSC, the messenger RNA contains sequences that assemble to form an active hammerhead ribozyme. The hammerhead ribozyme is able to divide itself in two because it is a self-cleaving molecule. By preventing protein translation, this self-cleaving action in the messenger RNAs effectively turns off the genes. Most likely, another mechanism exists to turn on the genes by stopping the self-cleaving action of the ribozyme. However, the UCSC researchers are still searching for such a mechanism, but they assume it is out there, somewhere.
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