Recent research at Yale provided a glimpse of the ancient
mechanism that helped diversify our genomes; it illuminated a
relationship between gene processing in humans and the most
primitive organisms by creating the first crystal structure of a
crucial self-splicing region of RNA. Genes of higher organisms
code for production of proteins through intermediary RNA
molecules. But, after transcription from the DNA, these RNAs
must be cut into pieces and patched together before they are
ready for translation into protein. Stretches of the RNA
sequence that code for protein are kept, and the intervening
sequences, or introns, are spliced out of the transcript. Ribbon
reconstruction view of the crystal structure of an RNA group II
intron -- red domain is the active site. Credit: Pyle / Yale
This work, published in Science, highlights a 16-year quest by
Anna Marie Pyle, the William Edward Gilbert Professor of
Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry at Yale, and her research
team into the nature of “group II” introns, a p