Twenty years of RNA: reflections on post-transcriptional regulation
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Integrative Program for Biological and Genome Sciences, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
- Corresponding author: william_marzluff{at}med.unc.edu
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
In retrospect, the establishment of the RNA journal 20 years ago came at a propitious time in the study of RNA biology. In the previous decade the discovery of catalytic RNA, and the variety of different RNA processing pathways required for synthesis of mature RNAs, had expanded our view of RNA from simply being a passive template for carrying the information in DNA for protein sequences to the ribosome for translation, to a much broader role in the cell. The concept of the RNA world had been embraced (at least by RNA biologists). The broad picture of much of RNA metabolism had been elucidated but the details of the complexities of gene expression implied by alternative splicing, alternative polyadenylation and the details of RNA metabolism, including RNA transport and RNA degradation still needed to be worked out. The decade of new discoveries prior to establishment of the RNA journal clearly …
