Ribonucleic Acid (RNA's)

Abstract

In this study we try to explore the concept of “Ribonucleic Acid” in a holistic context. The main focus of the research is on “Ribonucleic Acid” and its relation with “Gene Regulation and stability of life”. The research also analyzes many aspects of “Ribonucleic Acid” and tries to gauge its effect on “the long-term development which comes with gene development”. Finally the research describes various factors which are responsible for “Ribonucleic Acid” and tries to describe the overall effect of “Ribonucleic Acid” on “the survival of human beings”.

RNA's in Gene Regulation

Introduction

Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) is amongst the most important fluids to ease and speed the process of gene regulation. RNA, alongside DNA and protein, which make genes in the human body, is the most important facet, which is responsible for the sustainability and growth of life known to us.

Gene expression comprises all the events that lead to the synthesis of a functional gene product from a gene on the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Most genes encode for proteins and the rest for ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules that play a role in the synthesis of proteins. Genes, the basic units of inheritance, take the form of stretches of DNA on a chromosome. The sequence of the approximately 1,000 or more nucleotides that make up a gene determines the structure of the product it encodes (Filipowicz, 2005).

Discovery of RNA Interference

In 2006 two American scientists, Andrew Fire from Stanford University in California and Craig Mello from the University of Massachusetts at Worcester, received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine "for their discovery of RNA interference—gene silencing by double stranded RNA." While studying the regulation of gene expression in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, Fire and Mello observed the effect of injecting several types of RNA into the worms. Sense RNA is defined as the sequence of RNA that encodes for the synthesis of a protein. The complementary sequence is called antisense RNA. When Fire and Mello separately injected sense or antisense mRNA that encoded for a muscle protein, they observed no effect. When they injected both simultaneously, the worms twitched in a manner similar to worms that had mutant copies of the muscle coding gene (Storz, 2002).

After hypothesizing that the injected sense and antisense RNA strands bound to one another and silenced the very gene that they encoded, they examined the effect of injecting RNA with sequences of other proteins. ...