Nishikura K
Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1992 Oct 28;660:240-50. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1992.tb21076.x.
The double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) unwinding/modifying activity is a recently discovered cellular activity capable of unwinding or denaturing dsRNAs by modifying multiple adenosine residues to inosines and creating I-U mismatched base-pairings. The biological functions of this activity, which can potentially mutate the coding capacity of messenger RNAs (mRNAs), are presently not known. However, this unwinding/modifying activity is likely to affect the secondary structures, processing, and turn-over of various eukaryotic as well as viral transcripts. Although the activity was originally found and proposed as a cellular factor that interfered with the use of antisense RNA, it now appears more likely that the activity in fact may participate in antisense RNA suppression of target genes, either by altering the coding capacity of the sense mRNAs or by accelerating the degradation of duplex RNAs. Further understanding of this novel enzymatic activity, and thus, in turn, of the metabolism of dsRNAs in vivo, should allow us to derive a better strategy for designing antisense RNA.
双链RNA（dsRNA）解旋/修饰活性是一种最近发现的细胞活性，它能够通过将多个腺苷残基修饰为肌苷并形成I-U错配碱基对来解旋或变性dsRNA。这种活性的生物学功能目前尚不清楚，它可能会改变信使RNA（mRNA）的编码能力。然而，这种解旋/修饰活性可能会影响各种真核生物以及病毒转录本的二级结构、加工和周转。尽管该活性最初被发现并被认为是一种干扰反义RNA使用的细胞因子，但现在看来更有可能的是，该活性实际上可能通过改变正义mRNA的编码能力或加速双链RNA的降解来参与反义RNA对靶基因的抑制作用。对这种新型酶活性的进一步了解，进而对体内dsRNA代谢的了解，应该能让我们制定出更好的反义RNA设计策略。
