Global warfare in the Cell

Unlike the rest of us who love RNA, the general cell (bacteria, humans alike) does not like RNA at all. Why you ask (or the two of you who read my blog). This is because RNA is typically a signature of viruses which are at open war with the cell. Some common RNA-based viruses are Influenza, HIV, SARs, Polio, Rabies and Measles just to mention a few. Now any virus needs a cell to reproduce, it just cannot reproduce lots of ‘baby’ viruses in any other way except ...

RNA turns genes off!

Right, turning genes off is just one of the things that RNA is very good at doing. This process is called RNA-interference (RNAi) because the small RNA interferes with the gene’s mRNA moving from the transcription to translation processes (see blog 1 for a refresher on this). Today I will explain one part of RNAi which is how microRNAs (miRNAs) kind of work.

Small RNAs are transcribed that fold back upon themselves in what is called a hairpin loop structure so you hav...