Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về sinh học được đăng trên tạp chí sinh học Journal of Biology đề tài: Motifs from the deep. | Journal of Biology Minireview Motifs from the deep Tony W Hwang Vlad Codrea and Andrew D Ellington Address Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology University of Texas Austin TX78712 USA. Correspondence Tony W Hwang. Email Abstract Because of the increasing recognition of the importance of noncoding RNAs in gene regulation there is considerable interest in identifying RNA motifs in genomic data. In a recent report in BMC Genomics Breaker and colleagues describe a new algorithm for identifying functional noncoding RNAs in metagenomic sequences of marine organisms a strategy that may be particularly effective for discovering new and unique riboswitches. Noncoding RNAs ncRNAs are increasingly recognized as mediators of disease 1 and as fundamental regulators of metabolic pathways in prokaryotes 2 and eukaryotes 3 . An unexpectedly large number of ncRNAs have been found to have key roles in essential cellular functions including chromosome maintenance and DNA replication RNA processing and translation and protein translocation and stability 2 4 . The largest class of regulatory RNAs comprises microRNAs miRNAs of less than 30 nucleotides that bind to mRNAs and promote degradation or repress translation 4 . Less numerous than miRNAs but widespread among bacteria are riboswitches structured RNAs located primarily in the 3 or 5 untranslated regions UTRs of bacterial mRNAs that bind metabolites and change conformation to regulate gene expression. Riboswitches are characterized by conserved motifs that include an aptamer domain that recognizes the metabolite ligands and an expression platform that can alter the conformation and function of regulatory elements involved in transcription or translation. In recent years experimental and bioinformatic strategies have been developed to discover ncRNA candidates in organisms ranging from Escherichia coli to humans. The laboratory of Ronald Breaker has now developed
