RNA: master or servant?
- Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
- Corresponding author: karla.neugebauer{at}yale.edu
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
RNA has sequence and structure that give it great versatility. It can expose side chains in single stranded regions for protein interaction or translation. It can hide in complicated stem loops. It can be catalytic. These are some of the properties that cause us to love RNA as a molecule. However well this is appreciated by the wider community of biologists, RNA is still viewed as a messenger racing barefoot between the realms of two great kings. Perhaps we have this unconscious bias about RNA, because these are the fairytales we grew up with. Is it possible that RNA has even greater capacity to organize cells than we have imagined already?
Look at RNA in cells. Ramon y Cajal did this in the 19th century when he stained sections of the vertebrate nervous system with silver. Silver deposits on RNA-rich structures revealed two nuclear structures: nucleoli and accessory bodies (now …
