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News Feature
Nature 425, 232-233 (18 September 2003) | doi:10.1038/425232a
Gene regulation: Switched on to RNA
Jonathan Knight1
- Jonathan Knight writes for Nature from San Francisco.
Abstract
Shape-shifting RNAs that sense the environment — 'riboswitches' — can alter gene activity. Jonathan Knight reports on a discovery that is explaining some of the mysteries of gene regulation.
One day in 1999, molecular biologist Ron Breaker interrupted his lab's weekly meeting to issue a challenge: to discover whether their synthetic RNA biosensors were original, or whether nature got there first.Breaker's team, at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, was crafting molecular sensors out of RNA that changes shape when it binds to a specific molecule.
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