Department of Surgery, The Methodist Hospital and The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, 6565 Fannin St., Houston, TX 77030, USA.
Biochimie. 2011 Nov;93(11):1955-61. doi: 10.1016/j.biochi.2011.07.008. Epub 2011 Jul 28.
Since the discovery of messenger RNA (mRNA) over half a century ago, the assumption has always been that the only function of mRNA is to make a protein. However, recent studies of prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms unexpectedly show that some mRNAs may be functionally binary and have additional structural functions that are unrelated to their translation product. These findings imply that some of the phenotypic features of cells and organisms can also be binary, that is, they depend both on the function of a protein and the independent structural function of its mRNA. In this review, we will discuss this concept within the framework of multifunctional RNA molecules and the RNA World Hypothesis.
自半个多世纪前发现信使 RNA（mRNA）以来，人们一直认为 mRNA 的唯一功能是制造蛋白质。然而，对原核和真核生物的最新研究出人意料地表明，一些 mRNA 可能具有双重功能，具有与其翻译产物无关的额外结构功能。这些发现表明，细胞和生物体的某些表型特征也可能是二元的，也就是说，它们既依赖于蛋白质的功能，也依赖于其 mRNA 的独立结构功能。在这篇综述中，我们将在多功能 RNA 分子和 RNA 世界假说的框架内讨论这一概念。
