Public Release: 3-Feb-2003
Journal of Biological Chemistry
Purdue researchers connect life's blueprints with its energy source
The Purdue University research team that recently created a tiny motor out of synthetic biological molecules has found further evidence that RNA molecules can perform physical work, a discovery that could advance nanotechnology and possibly solve fundamental mysteries about life itself.
National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health

Contact: Chad Boutin
cboutin@purdue.edu
765-494-2081
Purdue University

[Eurekalert - Biology]

Wow!! This is pretty incredible stuff. There has been a lot of research the last few years demonstrating that RNA can do almost everything that is ncessary for life. It holds genetic information, it has enzymatic activities and it can provide structural scaffolds. This work now extends its abilities to binding and using ATP 9adenosine triphosphate). This is the main energy source of every living organism. Now, I am not too surprised that someone could use modern technology to create RNA molecules that can degrade ATP. This is simply an enzymatic activity and ATP 'really' wants to lose one of its phosphates. What I was amazed at was that theywere able to get this degradation to do work!!

One of the main purposes of ATP is for its energy release to be put to use, either for physical work or to make it easier for ctalysis to occur. For an RNA molecule to not onnly degrade ATP but to harness that energy is incredible. Now RNA can do everything. Wow.

And this may answer one of the questions I have had since high school. Why use ATP as an energy source? Of all the molecules why did life chose this one? Is it a coincidence that the structure for ATP is virtually the same as the basic building blocks for DNA and RNA? Well, it may be that RNA can use it easier for energy control. If life started in an RNA world, than there may have been a lot of nucleotides like ATP around. Nice ideas.  11:36:08 AM    

Public Release: 4-Feb-2003
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Computer scientist locates more than 1,000 novel genes in mouse and human
Using both the mouse and human genomes, a computer scientist at Washington University in St. Louis and international collaborators have developed a method for predicting novel genes in both genomes.
National Instituties of Health, National Science Foundation

Contact: Tony Fitzpatrick
tony_fitzpatrick@aismail.wustl.edu
314-935-5272
Washington University in St. Louis

[Eurekalert - Biology]

Comparing different genomes has been a tried and true method to identify genes. FInding the genes is not as important as validating the find in the cell. The big problem that in silico procedures have for finding genes is that they are not very accurate for finding the entire gene. They miss exon/intron boundaries, as well as smaller genes. This has been a topic in several talks here at BioCon.  10:30:11 AM