Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA; Center for Synthetic Biology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA. Electronic address: https://www.twitter.com/DavidBushhouse.
Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA; Center for Synthetic Biology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
J Mol Biol. 2022 Sep 30;434(18):167665. doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2022.167665. Epub 2022 Jun 1.
Recent advances in interrogating RNA folding dynamics have shown the classical model of RNA folding to be incomplete. Here, we pose three prominent questions for the field that are at the forefront of our understanding of the importance of RNA folding dynamics for RNA function. The first centers on the most appropriate biophysical framework to describe changes to the RNA folding energy landscape that a growing RNA chain encounters during transcriptional elongation. The second focuses on the potential ubiquity of strand displacement - a process by which RNA can rapidly change conformations - and how this process may be generally present in broad classes of seemingly different RNAs. The third raises questions about the potential importance and roles of cellular protein factors in RNA conformational switching. Answers to these questions will greatly improve our fundamental knowledge of RNA folding and function, drive biotechnological advances that utilize engineered RNAs, and potentially point to new areas of biology yet to be discovered.
近年来，对 RNA 折叠动力学的研究进展表明，经典的 RNA 折叠模型并不完整。在这里，我们提出了该领域的三个突出问题，这些问题处于我们理解 RNA 折叠动力学对于 RNA 功能的重要性的前沿。第一个问题集中在最合适的生物物理框架上，以描述在转录延伸过程中，不断增长的 RNA 链所遇到的 RNA 折叠能量景观的变化。第二个问题集中在链置换的普遍性上——一种 RNA 可以快速改变构象的过程——以及这个过程如何普遍存在于看似不同的 RNA 的广泛类别中。第三个问题提出了关于细胞蛋白因子在 RNA 构象转换中的潜在重要性和作用的问题。对这些问题的回答将极大地提高我们对 RNA 折叠和功能的基本认识，推动利用工程 RNA 的生物技术进步，并可能指向尚未发现的新的生物学领域。
