Latest Intron Stories

Lasers used to study splicing of pre-messenger RNA moleculesFrom neurosurgery to bar code readers, lasers have been used in a myriad of applications since they were first introduced in the late 1950's. Now, with the work being done in Jeff Gelles' Lab at Brandeis University, researchers have developed a way to use lasers to study the splicing of pre-messenger RNA molecules, an essential process in creating proteins to sustain advanced organisms, including human life. This process of splicing...

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania explain how a class of RNA molecules is able to target the genetic building blocks that guide the functioning of a specific part of the nerve cell. Abnormalities at this site are in involved in epilepsy, neurodegenerative disease, and cognitive disorders. Their results are published this week in the journal Neuron.A team of researchers, led by James Eberwine, PhD, the Elmer Bobst Professor of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine, and Junhyong...

DNA was originally thought to have a single function:  to help cells make the proteins they need.  Any DNA that is not immediately required to produce proteins was written off as "junk" and deemed unworthy of study.  Recently, however, it has become clear that junk DNA performs a wide range of important tasks.  As a result, attention is shifting to asking why some organisms have so much of it and other organisms so little.  A particular puzzle is posed by so-called "introns",...

Implications for brain diseases such as epilepsy, according to Penn studyCells have their own version of the cut-and-paste editing function called splicing. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have documented a novel form of splicing in the cytoplasm of a nerve cell, which dictates a special form of a potassium channel protein in the outer membrane. The channel protein is found in the dendrites of hippocampus cells -- the seat of memory, learning, and spatial...

A bacteria that lives in hot springs in Japan may help solve one of the mysteries of the early evolution of complex organisms, according to a study publishing next week in PLoS Biology. It may also be the key to 21st century biofuel production.Biochemists Alan Lambowitz and Georg Mohr began investigating Thermosynechococcus elongatus, a cyanobacterium that can survive at temperatures up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit, after they noticed an unusually high percentage of the bacteria's genetic...

A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but it would no longer be a rose. If a grass is booted out of the grass family, where does it go?Leah Morris and Dr. Melvin Duvall from Northern Illinois University recently investigated the evolution of grasses, one of the most economic and ecologically important plant families, by sequencing the chloroplast DNA of an early diverging grass genus, Anomochloa, and comparing it to the chloroplasts of other grasses. Their results are published in the...

Like a film director cutting out extraneous footage to create a blockbuster, the cellular machine called the spliceosome snips out unwanted stretches of genetic material and joins the remaining pieces to fashion a template for protein production.But more than box office revenues are at stake: if the spliceosome makes a careless cut, disease likely results.Using a new approach to studying the spliceosome, a team led by University of Michigan chemistry and biophysics professor Nils Walter,...

TAU researchers unravel the mysteries of DNA packagingImagine a huge spool of film containing thousands of sequences of random scenes. Without a talented editor, a screening would have no meaning.The RNA "spools" that make up DNA in our genes need careful editing, too. Genes are composed of meaningful sequences, called exons, separated by meaningless junk sections called introns. In order for cells to produce RNA "” the material that is required to create proteins that are vital...

The sequences of nonsense DNA that interrupt genes could be far more important to the evolution of genomes than previously thought, according to a recent Science report by Indiana University Bloomington and University of New Hampshire biologists.Their study of the model organism Daphnia pulex (water flea) is the first to demonstrate the colonization of a single lineage by "introns," as the interrupting sequences are known. The scientists say introns are inserted into the genome far...

A chemical cousin of the common antibiotic tetracycline might be useful in treating spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a currently incurable disease that is the leading genetic cause of death in infants. This is the finding of a research collaboration involving Adrian Krainer, Ph.D., of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and scientists from Paratek Pharmaceuticals and Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.SMA is caused by mutations in a gene called Survival of Motor Neuron 1...