Access

News and Views

Nature 428, 263-264 (18 March 2004) | doi:10.1038/428263a

Open Innovation Challenges

naturejobs

RNA finds a simpler way

Thomas R. Cech1

Top

Is there no end to the versatility of RNA? The latest feat to be revealed is RNA's ability to switch off genes through a neatly straightforward mechanism. So it isn't only proteins that can repress gene activity.

Organisms profit from synthesizing only those enzymes whose products are in demand. After all, if there's plenty of an amino acid around, why should a cell waste energy making the enzymes that are needed to generate it from precursors?

  1. Thomas R. Cech is at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 4000 Jones Bridge Road, Chevy Chase, Maryland 20815, and in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
    e-mail: Email: thomas.cech@colorado.edu

MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS

These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.

NEWS AND VIEWS

RNA allostery glimpsed

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology News and Views (01 Jul 2006)

Ribozyme d???j??? vu

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology News and Views (01 Apr 2004)

See all 3 matches for News And Views