Using RNA as your guide

RNA-guided RNA pseudouridylation in archaea

Pseudouridylation is one of the most abundant forms of post-transcriptional RNA modification in eukaryotes and archaea, and plays a key role in the generation and correct functioning of cellular RNAs. The modifications are made by a complex of proteins directed to target sites by integral non-coding guide RNAs.

Drs. Michael and Rebecca Terns and colleagues have effectively reconstituted the archaeal modification guide ribonucleoprotein complex that guides pseudouridylation in vitro in a site-specific manner. This study provides unprecedented insight into the organization and function of pseudouridylation guide RNPs, and Dr. Terns indicates that “this is only the beginning of the gold mine of new information that this system will yield about a complex that is also involved in rRNA processing and the function of telomerase in eukaryotes.”