The genetic code is the set of rules used by living cells to translate information encoded within genetic material into proteins. Translation is accomplished by the ribosome, which links proteinogenic amino acids in an order specified by messenger RNA (mRNA), using transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules to carry amino acids and to read the mRNA three nucleotides at a time. The genetic code is highly similar among all organisms and can be expressed in a simple table with 64 entries.
Transfer RNA is an adaptor molecule composed of RNA, typically 76 to 90 nucleotides in length, that serves as the physical link between the mRNA and the amino acid sequence of proteins. Transfer RNA (tRNA) does this by carrying an amino acid to the protein-synthesizing machinery of a cell called the ribosome. Complementation of a 3-nucleotide codon in a messenger RNA (mRNA) by a 3-nucleotide anticodon of the tRNA results in protein synthesis based on the mRNA code. As such, tRNAs are a necessary component of translation, the biological synthesis of new proteins in accordance with the genetic code.
An aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase, also called tRNA-ligase, is an enzyme that attaches the appropriate amino acid onto its corresponding tRNA. It does so by catalyzing the transesterification of a specific cognate amino acid or its precursor to one of all its compatible cognate tRNAs to form an aminoacyl-tRNA. In humans, the 20 different types of aa-tRNA are made by the 20 different aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, one for each amino acid of the genetic code.
Bacterial translation is the process by which messenger RNA is translated into proteins in bacteria.
In molecular biology, snoRNA SNORD90 (HBII-295) is a non-coding RNA that belongs to the family of C/D snoRNAs. Initially described as HBII-295 this RNA has now been called SNORD70 by the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee. It is the human orthologue of the mouse MBII-295 and has no identified RNA target. This RNA is expressed from an intron of the MNAB/OR1K1 gene.
Exportin 1 (XPO1), also known as chromosomal region maintenance 1 (CRM1), is a eukaryotic protein that mediates the nuclear export of various proteins and RNAs.
Nothobranchius furzeri, the turquoise killifish, is a species of killifish from the family Nothobranchiidae native to Africa where it is only known from Zimbabwe and Mozambique. This annual killifish inhabits ephemeral pools in semi-arid areas with scarce and erratic precipitations and have adapted to the routine drying of their environment by evolving desiccation-resistant eggs that can remain dormant in the dry mud for one and maybe more years by entering into diapause.
The term proofreading is used in genetics to refer to the error-correcting processes, first proposed by John Hopfield and Jacques Ninio, involved in DNA replication, immune system specificity, and enzyme-substrate recognition among many other processes that require enhanced specificity. The proofreading mechanisms of Hopfield and Ninio are non-equilibrium active processes that consume ATP to enhance specificity of various biochemical reactions.
Amino acid activation refers to the attachment of an amino acid to its respective transfer RNA (tRNA). The reaction occurs in the cell cytosol and consists of two steps: first, the enzyme aminoacyl tRNA synthetase catalyzes the binding of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to a corresponding amino acid, forming a reactive aminoacyl adenylate intermediate and releasing inorganic pyrophosphate (PPi). Subsequently, aminoacyl tRNA synthetase binds the AMP-amino acid to a tRNA molecule, releasing AMP and attaching the amino acid to the tRNA. The resulting aminoacyl-tRNA is said to be charged.
PAR-CLIP is a biochemical method for identifying the binding sites of cellular RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) and microRNA-containing ribonucleoprotein complexes (miRNPs). The method relies on the incorporation of ribonucleoside analogs that are photoreactive, such as 4-thiouridine (4-SU) and 6-thioguanosine (6-SG), into nascent RNA transcripts by living cells. Irradiation of the cells by ultraviolet light of 365 nm wavelength induces efficient crosslinking of photoreactive nucleoside–labeled cellular RNAs to interacting RBPs. Immunoprecipitation of the RBP of interest is followed by isolation of the crosslinked and coimmunoprecipitated RNA. The isolated RNA is converted into a cDNA library and is deep sequenced using next-generation sequencing technology.
Pneumoviridae is a family of negative-strand RNA viruses in the order Mononegavirales. Humans, cattle, and rodents serve as natural hosts. Respiratory tract infections are associated with member viruses such as human respiratory syncytial virus. There are five species in the family which are divided between the genera Metapneumovirus and Orthopneumovirus. The family used to be considered as a sub-family of Paramyxoviridae, but has been reclassified as of 2016.
Upinder Singh Bhalla is an Indian computational neuroscientist, academic and a professor at National Centre for Biological Sciences of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He is known for his studies on neuronal and synaptic signalling in memory and olfactory coding using computational and experimental methods and is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2007, for his contributions to biological sciences. The Infosys Science Foundation awarded him the Infosys Prize 2017 in Life Sciences for his pioneering contributions to the understanding of the brain's computational machinery.
Susan A. Martinis is an American biochemist. She has co-authored over 57 publications in peer reviewed journals and scientific book chapters. Her expertise is in protein:RNA interactions and aminoacyl tRNA synthetases. As of 2019, she is the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Ginés Morata Pérez ForMemRS is Research Professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain and an expert in developmental biology of the fruit fly (Drosophila), a specialty he has worked on for over 40 years.
Microcrystal electron diffraction, or MicroED, is a CryoEM method that was developed by the Gonen laboratory in late 2013 at the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. MicroED is a form of electron crystallography where thin 3D crystals are used for structure determination by electron diffraction. Prior to this demonstration, macromolecular (protein) electron crystallography was only used on 2D crystals, for example.
Kiyoshi Nagai was a Japanese structural biologist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Cambridge, UK. He was known for his work on the mechanism of RNA splicing and structures of the spliceosome.
Xiang-Lei Yang (杨湘磊) is a Chinese-born American molecular biologist. She is a professor at The Scripps Research Institute, located in La Jolla, California. Her work has contributed to the establishment of physiological importance of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases beyond their classical role in supporting mRNA translation and their disordered processes that contribute to disease. She founded the Translation Machinery in Health and Disease Gordon Research Conference, an ongoing biannual international conference since 2015. She helped co-found aTyr Pharma, a Nasdaq-listed biotechnology company.
Manjula Reddy is an Indian bacterial geneticist. She is the chief scientist at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, India. In 2019, she won the Infosys Prize in Life Sciences for her work on bacterial cell wall structure and synthesis. She is a Fellow of the Telangana Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences.
Philipp Holliger is a Swiss molecular biologist best known for his work on xeno nucleic acids (XNAs) and RNA engineering. Holliger is a program leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.
Alan Lambowitz is a professor for the University of Texas at Austin in Molecular Biosciences and Oncology and has been instrumental in many bio-molecular processes and concepts, such as intron splicing and mitochondrial ribosomal assembly.
