U.S. report lays out an ambitious plan to harness the “RNome” for medicine and more—but funding is uncertain
Among the 10 bases in this RNA molecule from SARS-CoV-2, two have modifications that likely affect the RNA’s function.In 2021, as a new kind of vaccine began to protect millions from COVID-19, many people heard about messenger RNA for the first time since high school biology. The molecule, which transfers DNA’s code out of a cell’s nucleus to guide protein production, is just one of several types of RNA that profoundly affect how cells function. Now, the U.S.
Far from being just a messenger for genetic information, RNA serves diverse roles in cells. Transfer RNA delivers specific amino acids to the ribosome—also partly composed of RNA—that puts together proteins. Other RNAs silence genes or affect their activity. How these RNAs behave reflects not just their sequence, but also how they are modified before being exported from the cell’s nucleus, often by the addition of chemical side groups.
It sets a series of 5-year goals and suggests the establishment of “RNA core centers” to tackle them. Over 10 years, the RNome project should document all the modifications in the RNA of a few well-characterized human cell lines. By 15 years, it should have mapped modifications under different conditions in model organisms such as worms and cataloged them in human diseases.
Other NASEM suggestions tackle research methods: The National Institute of Standards and Technology must come up with synthetic RNA molecules, with known modifications in known places, that researchers can use as a reference to test their sequencing technologies and lab protocols, the report says. The National Institutes of Health , working with international partners, should establish a centralized database for RNAs, along with rules about how to describe them.
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