blackfemalescientist:christel-thoughts:The journal reference for the announcement below is this :N

blackfemalescientist:christel-thoughts:The journal reference for the announcement below is this : Nikesh Patel, Eric C. Dykeman, Robert H. A. Coutts, George P. Lomonossoff, David J. Rowlands, Simon E. V. Phillips, Neil Ranson, Reidun Twarock, Roman Tuma, Peter G. Stockley. Revealing the density of encoded functions in a viral RNA. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015; 201420812 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1420812112s-c-i-guy:Code cracked for infections by major group of viruses including common cold and polioResearchers have cracked a code that governs infections by a major group of viruses including the common cold and polio. Until now, scientists had not noticed the code, which had been hidden in plain sight in the sequence of the ribonucleic acid (RNA) that makes up this type of viral genome.But a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Early Edition by a group from the University of Leeds and University of York unlocks its meaning and demonstrates that jamming the code can disrupt virus assembly. Stopping a virus assembling can stop it functioning and therefore prevent disease.Professor Peter Stockley, Professor of Biological Chemistry in the University of Leeds’ Faculty of Biological Sciences, who led the study, said: “If you think of this as molecular warfare, these are the encrypted signals that allow a virus to deploy itself effectively.”“Now, for this whole class of viruses, we have found the ‘Enigma machine’ — the coding system that was hiding these signals from us. We have shown that not only can we read these messages but we can jam them and stop the virus’ deployment.”Single-stranded RNA viruses are the simplest type of virus and were probably one of the earliest to evolve. However, they are still among the most potent and damaging of infectious pathogens.read moreso this is really exciting when combined with the work some chemical biologists are doing with targeting RNA with small molecules. Like It would be really cool to inhibit particular sequences with small molecule drugs that don’t have the same limitations of like, siRNA. -- source link
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