Gene Regulation in the Literature
There are two interesting new papers out in the newest issue of Molecular Cell, and one from Science a week back that’s online early:
An Important Role for the Multienzyme aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetase Complex in Mammalian Translation and Cell Growth: Seems that the two different forms of Arginine tRNA synthetase have different roles in the cell, one to make tRNAs for synthesizing proteins, and to make tRNAs for degrading them via the ubiquitin pathway!
Human Alu RNA is a Modular Transacting Repressor of mRNA Transcription During Heat Shock:
Non-coding RNAs have been shown to have transcriptional regulatory properties, but this particular paper discusses one that looks a lot like a protein, in the sense that it seems to have modular “domains.” Pretty neat work!
Selective Blockade of MicroRNA Processing by Lin-28: The main discovery of the paper is, of course, nicely summarized in the title. The idea is that Lin-28 prevents the biogenesis of let-7, one very well-studied (though not well-understood) family of microRNAs, by binding to the RNA and preventing Drosha and Dicer from gaining access to it.
