The importance of being modified: an unrealized code to RNA structure and function
- The RNA Institute, State University of New York, Albany, New York 12222, USA
- Corresponding author: pagris{at}albany.edu
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
A, U, C, and G are boring. Truly, four nucleosides sometimes repeated in seemingly endless sequence has a numbing effect even in a computational and structural context. However, there is nothing boring about the chemistries and structures of post-transcriptional modifications of RNA as indicated by the rising interest and rapidly increasing numbers of publications. A plethora of papers demonstrate that modified nucleosides of RNA are functionally indispensable for RNA processing and translation. Over the last 20 years, efficiency, accuracy, enhanced activity and responsiveness are terms that accompany studies of modifications. Modifications are found in all types of RNAs, in every structural motif and in unstructured regions. The large numbers of modifications in tRNAs are quite familiar. The presence, chemistries and RNA sequence locations of modified nucleosides are only now beginning to be appreciated as both temporal—in response to environmental (internal and external) signals—and spatial, in their effect on RNA conformation, …
