© 2024 F.Mancini, H.Cahova, ChemBioChem published by Wiley-VCH GmbH. https://doi.org/10.1002/cbic.202580304
Stressing the role of RNA caps The team behind the EU-backed StressRNaction project are studying newly discovered types of RNA caps, small molecules found at the end of RNA strands. Researchers aim to shed new light on the function of these RNA caps, and build a deeper picture of their wider role in the human cells , as Dr Hana Cahova explains. The
DNA of living organisms is transformed into RNA through transcription, and the RNA is then translated into a variety of different proteins that play a wide range of important roles in the body. The addition of small molecules called RNA caps to the end of RNA strands has a significant influence on this process. “You can think of these molecules almost as a knot at the end of a strand of RNA, which protect and stabilise the RNA,” explains Dr Hana Cahova, who leads a research group at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (IOCB) in Prague. It has been known that these RNA caps are present in eukaryotic cells since the ‘70s, now researchers have discovered new types of RNA caps. “Other small molecules known to be in the cellular environment serve as a kind of cofactors, such as NAD, CoA or dinucleoside www.euresearcher.com
polyphosphates. These molecules share some of the structural features of RNA, even though they are in a free form,” says Dr Cahova.
Fluorescently stained HEK293T cells. (source - Cahova group)
StressRNaction project The discovery that dinucleoside polyphosphates can be part of RNA led to the establishing of the EU-backed StressRNaction project, in which Dr Cahova and her colleagues are investigating the role of these newly discovered RNA caps in cellular responses to stress and infection. Dinucleoside polyphosphates (NpnNs), a type of signalling molecules are also known as alarmones. “We call these molecules non-canonical RNA caps, in the sense that they were found only recently,” explains Dr Cahova. Following on from the discovery of these structures, Dr Cahova and the project team are now trying to shed new light on their wider role. “These structures are physically covalently bound to the end of the RNA,” she continues. “We are trying to understand what these NpnN molecules are doing there and what their function is.
13