RNA editing articles from across Nature Portfolio

Here the authors captured the structure of human telomerase H/ACA ribonucleoprotein (RNP) by cryo-EM. The structure rationalizes telomere-disorder disease mutations and reveals insights into the mechanism of pseudouridylation by eukaryotic H/ACA RNPs.

The Karijolich laboratory describes an atlas of A-to-I RNA editing during the KSHV lifecycle in primary effusion lymphoma. These analyses identified conserved editing events within a viral-encoded microRNA, revealing a critical role for the microRNA and its modification in virus infection.

Structural basis of crRNA processing, target RNA cleavage and regulation of auto-immunity in the Cas7-11-crRNA complex of Desulfonema ishimotonii.

The deamination of all adenosines in the wobble base position is essential to empower the individual tRNA to decode several codons. Here, the authors present the cryo-EM structure of the tRNA-bound ADAT2/3 deaminase, revealing how the geometry-specific enzyme acquiesces sequence-divergent tRNAs to its active site.

mRNAs that encode insulin in humans, mice, salmon and the fly Drosophila melanogaster are marked by methylated adenosines in the 3′ untranslated region (UTR). In D. melanogaster, these methylated adenosines are necessary for robust translation of the insulin mRNA into protein. In their absence, flies cannot regulate energy homeostasis and develop diabetes-like hallmarks.

Two new papers report programmable systems that leverage ADAR adenosine deaminases for recording transcript abundance.

Leilei Chen describes the discovery that adenosine-to-inosine editing by ADAR1 marks endogenous double-stranded RNA as self, to prevent it from triggering innate immunity.

Two recent studies published in Nature Biotechnology describe the engineering of circularized guide RNAs, which allow for programmable RNA base editing in vivo, with vastly improved editing efficiency and durability.

RNA editing by ADAR1 destabilizes epigenetic-treatment-induced retrotransposon stem–loops and thus dampens the immune response to the treatment, suggesting that ADAR1 could be a therapeutic target in combination with epigenetic therapy.

Two recent studies report innovative RNA base editing tools: adenine editing without the requirement for exogenous enzymes, and a new ability to edit cytosines.