ribozymes?

[mindinflight]

Although most ribozymes are quite rare in the cell, their roles are sometimes essential to life.

I'm taking Wikipedia's word for it here, added onto some jumbled AP Biology facts I remember from this year. *shrugs* I could be wrong, but hey, it's all speculation, right?

[LittleChickie]

HIV evolves though. So how long the "cure" would work is unknown.

[staticmorning]

I'm taking Wikipedia's word for it here, added onto some jumbled AP Biology facts I remember from this year. *shrugs* I could be wrong, but hey, it's all speculation, right?

im going to check on this with our Bio teacher in the morning. It just doesnt make much sense to me.

but, hey, you could be right. im not trying to prove you wrong here.. just trying to get it straight..

[mindinflight]

Gah, I'm so full of crap. Damn Wikipedia....

Turns out they aren't that rare, just available in teeny tiny, hard-to-harvest doses -- the functional part of a ribosome, the bit that synthesizes the protein? Yeah. Essentially a ribozyme. I looked it up. And that's just one example...

That's what you get for jumping to conclusions I suppose... sorry staticmorning.

I'll keep researching though. I like your idea about generating an HIV vaccine for profit... sounds like the kind of evil, sneaky thing a secret conglomerate would do, doesn't it?

[LittleChickie]

Gah, I'm so full of crap. Damn Wikipedia....

You just have to remember that Wiki can be edited by anyone. So you may not get the right stuff all the time.

[SARAHPHOBIA88]

Gah, I'm so full of crap. Damn Wikipedia....

You just have to remember that Wiki can be edited by anyone. So you may not get the right stuff all the time.

Also, someone might have gotten there just before you did, knowing we would be researching it now.

[LittleChickie]

Gah, I'm so full of crap. Damn Wikipedia....

You just have to remember that Wiki can be edited by anyone. So you may not get the right stuff all the time.

Also, someone might have gotten there just before you did, knowing we would be researching it now.

First Jepordy(sp?) and now Wikipedia!!!! When will the madness end!!?? lol

[mindinflight]

[SARAHPHOBIA88]

You just have to remember that Wiki can be edited by anyone. So you may not get the right stuff all the time.

Also, someone might have gotten there just before you did, knowing we would be researching it now.

First Jepordy(sp?) and now Wikipedia!!!! When will the madness end!!?? lol

Ha ha ha ha ha ha hah ha!

[robtomorrow]

Here is a simple description of the role autocatalytic RNA molecules or "Ribozymes" may have played in the origin of life.

http://gould.as.arizona.edu/~mmeyer/ast202/lect9.html

[staticmorning]

Turns out they aren't that rare, just available in teeny tiny, hard-to-harvest doses -- the functional part of a ribosome, the bit that synthesizes the protein? Yeah. Essentially a ribozyme. I looked it up. And that's just one example...

thats what confused me. without ribozymes, you would have a hard time making proteins..

That's what you get for jumping to conclusions I suppose... sorry staticmorning.

no problem at all.

The chicken or the auto-catalytic RNA?

the world may never know...

[Haether]

Ribozymes can be focused on certain gene sequences, and this capability has been the area of focus on ribozymes recently, because we're all trying to cure cancer.

Ribozymes can be synthesized, however, so chasing Bree around for ribozymes is really quite ridiculous.

some interesting articles (you may need to be on a university system to access these, I'm connected to Johns Hopkins on a VPN...if you're really curious, PM me):

nice overview article: http://tinyurl.com/32jpd4

applied science:
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10 ... .2005.15.1

http://tinyurl.com/2jzu6n



Edit to change long URLs to small ones for sake of forum readers

[impulse]

some interesting articles (you may need to be on a university system to access these, I'm connected to Johns Hopkins on a VPN...if you're really curious, PM me):

Haether, ok, but do you think this sort of information: Ribozyme Cleavage Leads to Decreased Expression of Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 3 in Human Multiple Myeloma Cells, Which Is Associated with Apoptosis and Downregulation of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor will really help the plot discussion? Just asking.

[Haether]

some interesting articles (you may need to be on a university system to access these, I'm connected to Johns Hopkins on a VPN...if you're really curious, PM me):

Haether, ok, but do you think this sort of information: Ribozyme Cleavage Leads to Decreased Expression of Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 3 in Human Multiple Myeloma Cells, Which Is Associated with Apoptosis and Downregulation of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor will really help the plot discussion? Just asking.

oh come on, I cannot be the only person who has some background in molecular biology on here.

but you could get what I'm saying from my OP. Ribozymes are useful in treating cancer (as it is a genetic disease, essentially).

and to translate that title, it means "Ribozymes prevent the growth of blood vessels to tumor cells"

ETA: and since at least Miles has a medical background, he may think this isn't too complicated either. I'm just excited they have something on here that isn't teenager crap. Of course, it will end up being dumbed down like a Michael Crichton novel and I will get frustrated and pissed...

[kellylen]

From my text book

The idea of a catalytic role for snRNA arose from the discovery of ribozymes. RNA molecules that function as enzymes. In some organisms, RNA splicing can occur without proteins or additional RNA molecules: The intron RNA functions as a ribozyme and catalyzes its own excision! For example, in the protozoan Tetrahymena, self-splicing occues in the production of ribosomal RNA (rRNA), a component of the organism's ribosomes. The pre-rRna actually removes it's own introns.
The fact that RNA is single stranded plays an important role in allowing certain RNA molecules to function as ribozymes. A region of an RNA molecules may base-pair with a complementary region elsewhere in the same molecules, this imparting specific structure to the RNA molecules as a whole. Also, some of the bases contain functional groups that may participate in catalysis. Just as the specific shape of an enzymatic protein and the functional groups on its amino acid side chains allow the protein to function as a catalyst, the structure of some RNA molecules allows them to function as catalysts too. The discovery of ribozymes rendered obsolete the belief that all biological catalysts were proteins.

RNA processing: RNA splicing. The RNA molecule shown here codes for beta-globin, one of the polypeptides of hemoglobin. the numbers under the RNA reger to codons; beta-globin is 146 amino acids long. the beta-globin gene and its pre-mRNA transcript have three exons, corrresponding to sequences that will leave the nucleus as mRNA. the 5' UTR and 3' UTE are partes of exons because they are included in the mRNAl however, they do not code for protein.) During RNA processing, the introns are cut out and the exons spliced together.

Thomas Cech, of the University of Colorade and Sidney Altman of Yale University found that RYNA, which plays a central role in protein synthesis, can also carry out a number of enzyme-like catalytic functions. Cech called these RNA catalysts Ribozymes. Some ribosymes can make complementary copies of short pieces of RNA, provided that they are supplied with nucleotide building blocks.

a ribozyme capable of replicating RNA. This RNA molecule can make a complementary copy of another piece of RNA (a template_ containing up to 14 nucleotides.