RNA

A team of researchers say they’ve found some building blocks of RNA in a molecular cloud close to the center of the Milky Way. The discovery has implications for theories about how life began on Earth—and perhaps elsewhere.The molecular cloud is named G+0.693-0.027. The team of astrophysicists, astrobiologists, and chemists conducted a survey of the cloud using two telescopes in Spain to unpack details of its chemistry.Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a molecule present in all living cells that behaves similarly to DNA, though…

The heart of the Milky Way is apparently a hotspot for molecules that combine to form RNA.A new survey of the thick, molecular clouds that shroud the galactic center has revealed the presence of a wide range of nitriles – organic molecules that are often toxic in isolation, but also constitute the building blocks of molecules essential for life.  The increase in prebiotic molecules (molecules involved in the emergence of life) identified in the galactic center, particularly those associated with RNA, has implications for…

Scientists have developed a new technique for imaging mRNA molecules in the brains of living mice. The research reveals new insights into how memories are formed and stored in the brain and could allow scientists to learn more about diseases such as Alzheimer's in the future.The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).There is still a lot of mystery surrounding the process of how memory is physically created and stored in the brain. It is well known that mRNA a type of RNA involved…

This illustration is inspired by the Paleolithic rock painting in the Lascaux cave, signifying the acronym of our method, ROCK. Figuratively, the patterns of the rock art in the background (brown) are the 2D projections of the engineered dimeric construct of the Tetrahymena group I intron, while the main object in the front (blue) is the reconstructed 3D cryo-EM map of the dimer, with one monomer in focus and refined to the high resolution that allowed the collaborators to build an atomic model of the RNA. Credit: Wyss…