Ability to smell food regulated by enzyme’s interaction with RNA interference pathway

ADARs do more than alter codon sequence in RNA

Recent studies at the University of Utah suggest new ways of regulating the behaviors that allow us to smell food, learn, and remember.

Brenda L. Bass, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry at the U School of Medicine and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and Leath A. Tonkin, a graduate student in her lab, published their findings in the Dec. 5 issue of the journal Science.

With the help of a tiny worm, C. elegans, Bass and Tonkin discovered that ADAR, an enzyme abundant in the nervous system, interacts with a pathway called RNAi (RNA interference). When it’s functioning properly, RNAi, which was discovered in 1998, ensures that certain genes are turned on in some cells and turned off in others.

C. elegans that have mutations in their ADAR genes have behavioral defects, according to Bass. For example, mutant worms that lack ADARs have trouble finding food. When placed near food a normal worm crawls quickly to the food but an ADAR mutant may crawl in a completely different direction. To see if ADAR functions were related to the RNAi pathway, Bass and Tonkin made strains of the worm with mutations in both the ADAR genes and in genes required for RNAi.

“Remarkably, in these worms, the behavioral defects associated with the mutations in the ADAR genes were eliminated,” Bass said. “This suggests that ADARs intersect with the RNAi pathway and that many of the behavioral defects of ADAR mutants are caused by aberrant RNAi.”

RNA is a nucleic acid that is an essential component of all cells. In a process called transcription, the information in our DNA genes is passed to RNA. A second process called translation allows the information in RNA to be turned into protein. Typically, one gene has the information for one protein, but with the help of “editing” enzymes such as ADAR, multiple proteins can be made from one gene.

ADARs enable RNA to produce different proteins by altering the sequence of nucleotides that contain the information for making a protein. That had been considered ADARs’ most important function, but the research of Bass and Tonkin shows that ADARs perform other jobs as well.

###
For information contact:

Brenda L. Bass, Ph.D., 801-581-4884, bbass@howard.genetics.utah.edu

Or

Phil Sahm, U of U Health Sciences Center Office of Public Affairs, 801-581-7387

Media Contact

Brenda Bass, Ph.D. EurekAlert!

More Information:

http://www.uuhsc.utah.edu/

All latest news from the category: Life Sciences and Chemistry

Articles and reports from the Life Sciences and chemistry area deal with applied and basic research into modern biology, chemistry and human medicine.

Valuable information can be found on a range of life sciences fields including bacteriology, biochemistry, bionics, bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, genetics, geobotany, human biology, marine biology, microbiology, molecular biology, cellular biology, zoology, bioinorganic chemistry, microchemistry and environmental chemistry.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors