🔆A-to-I mRNA Editing in Animals ✅Researchers from China recently reported that it’s hard to make sense of the widespread persistence of A-to-I mRNA editing in animals. 📍Concept and Mechanism ✅DNA acts like a recipe book for building proteins using 20 amino acids. Each recipe (i.e., gene) is transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA). ✅The mRNA is then read by ribosomes to assemble proteins. The mRNA is composed of four nucleotide bases: A (adenosine), U, G, and C. ✅In A-to-I mRNA editing, the adenosine (A) in mRNA is enzymatically converted into inosine (I) by proteins called ADARs (Adenosine Deaminase Acting on RNA). ✅The ribosome reads inosine as guanine (G), altering the protein’s amino acid sequence post-transcriptionally, without any change in the DNA. ✅Functional Impact: A-to-I editing can change the codon identity, thereby producing a different amino acid in the resulting protein. ✅This may lead to functional protein diversification and alteration in protein stability or activity. ✅A major risk is misreading stop codons: 🔰A stop codon like UAG or UGA may be edited to UGG, coding for tryptophan. 🔰This allows the ribosome to continue protein synthesis, potentially creating abnormally long or malfunctioning proteins #gs3 #science_technology