The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2024 announced last week and goes to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation. Nucleic acids (#DNA and #RNA) have featured prominently as prize-winning topics.
• 1959 to Ochoa and Kornberg for biological synthesis of RNA and DNA.
• 1962 to Crick, Watson and Crick for DNA double helix.
• 1968 to Kornana and Nirenberg for cracking the genetic code; to Holley for transfer RNA (tRNA).
When I reached University this was all established– DNA (the genes) has two opposite, base-paired strands that are copied like photographic positives and negatives.
Messenger RNA (mRNA) gets transcribed from the DNA “sense” strand to be translated into proteins. The tRNAs read the 3-lettercode from mRNA and bring the matching amino acids. The “ribosomes” (they have their own rRNA s a scaffold) string the amino acids into functional proteins.
There have been some more recent surPRIZEs:
• 1989 to Altman and Cech, who showed that RNA canalso perform catalytic functions just like protein enzymes.
• 2024 to Ambros and Ruvkun for microRNA (seeabove)
When I was an undergraduate, my research advisor, Prof. Donald Grierson, was just then starting his pioneering work using “antisense” RNA to base pair with mRNA to block its expression. By blocking polygalacturonase, an enzyme that digests cell walls in ripening (and OVER-ripening) fruits, Grierson’s team produced tomatoes that would stay firm on store shelves. As noted in their article (Smith et al, 1988), natural control by antisense RNA was then known only in bacteria, though transient effects had been observed by injecting antisense RNA into animal and plant cells. Although Grierson’s tomatoes now carried a stable new heritable genetic trait, we now know that they are not genetic freaks; it seems that ALL cells of plants, animals and other eukaryotes are controlled by huge arrays of microRNA that include antisense RNA.
Further reading
🧬Smith CJ, Watson CF, Ray J, Bird CR, Morris PC,Schuch W, Grierson D (1988) Antisense RNA inhibition of polygalacturonase gene expression in transgenic tomatoes. Nature, 334(6184), 724-726, https://doi.org/10.1038/334724a0
🧬Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2024: Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun – Discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2024/press-release/
