7 April 2014
Non-coding RNAs: Regulatory Guardians of the Genome - MDPI Magazine Highlight
During the last two decades the Central Dogma of Biology, which states that genetic information flows from DNA into messenger RNAs (mRNAs) via transcription, and from mRNAs into functional proteins via translation, has been shown to be far more complicated than what had long been accepted. Indeed, cells transcribe thousands of RNAs, which neither encode proteins nor have a structural function (like tRNAs or rRNAs), but which nonetheless play essential roles in the regulation of gene expression. These RNAs, which are collectively referred to as non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), vary greatly in their size (twenty to several thousand nucleotides), in their biosynthetic pathway and in their modus operandi. Found in virtually all organisms, ncRNAs, which coordinate the expression, stability and/or inheritance of genes either at the transcriptional or at the posttranscriptional level, continue to be an intense and exciting area of research. Continue reading →
