REVEALING RIBOSWITCHES: RNA is isolated from bacteria and tagged with a 3’ adapter, to which a complimentary oligonucleotide binds for reverse transcription and sequencing. Sequence analysis then reveals those transcripts that have been fully transcribed versus those prematurely truncated. The reproducible presence of similarly truncated transcripts for a given gene suggests the presence of a riboswitch in the mRNA.© GEORGE RETSECKRead the full story.
Riboswitch Screen
A newly developed method detects regulators of bacterial transcription called riboswitches.

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Ruth is a freelance journalist. Before freelancing, Ruth was a news editor for the Journal of Cell Biology in New York and an assistant editor for Nature Reviews Neuroscience in London. Prior to that, she was a bona fide pipette-wielding, test tube–shaking, lab coat–shirking research scientist. She has a PhD in genetics from King’s College London, and was a postdoc in stem cell biology at Imperial College London. Today she lives and writes in Connecticut.
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