RNA SOUP: Newly transcribed messenger RNA exiting the nucleus via nuclear pores© BENJAMIN CAMPILLO/SCIENCE SOURCE
For years, researchers described DNA and RNA as linear chains of four building blocks—the nucleotides A, G, C, and T for DNA; and A, G, C, and U for RNA. But these information molecules are much more than their core sequences. A variety of chemical modifications decorate the nucleic acids, increasing the alphabet of DNA to about a dozen known nucleotide variants. The alphabet of RNA is even more impressive, consisting of at least 140 alternative nucleotide forms. The different building blocks can affect the complementarity of the RNA molecules, alter their structure, and enable the binding of specific proteins that mediate various biochemical and cellular outcomes.
The large size of RNA’s vocabulary relative to that of DNA’s is not surprising. DNA is involved mainly ...
