Musings About RNA: The Write Stuff
Musings About RNA: The Write Stuff
by Lee J. Keller
Back when I was a kid, which admittedly must have been a long time ago, there wasn't a lot known about RNA, and even in college some time later, little was still known about RNA. In fact, we were just learning about DNA and what that might mean. I recall one biology teacher stating: DNA was simply 'the code of all life.' While RNA function was little known ( at the time) with some RNA involved in cell biology and the rest viewed as junk molecules, according to the teacher.
Since DNA was discovered in 1953, and all the publicity that followed for Watson and Crick, and later for Rosalind Franklin, a lot has been discovered. How the DNA was involved in genetics and gene expression became a huge field and eventually led to the sequencing of the human genome. Basically, this was certainly an initial understanding of the pairings of DNA structures and how they impacted genetic expression. Genes and their roles in human diversity and disease began to be identified. Later, this knowledge would help us know where changes in the genome could be theoretically made, if we just knew how to do it. Which was especially helpful as specific genes began to be edited using technologies such as CRISPR that also drew upon RNA to help in the editing/splicing that is part of that cutting edge process (excuse the pun).
RNA, on the other hand, was discovered nearly a hundred years earlier in 1868 by Friedrich Miescher who noticed substances in the nucleus of a cell which later became known as nucleic acids. Miescher called the material nuclein. Later this was seen to be RNA material involved in protein synthesis via the ribosome. (1933 research showing that DNA was in the nucleus and RNA in cytoplasm--which wouldn't hold up in so neat a differentiation of function). In fact, looking at the history of RNA research, perhaps my earlier statement based on what the teacher said, may be a little misleading because 1951-1965 found RNA research beginning to proliferate, and since that time it has exploded.
So all the way, from RNA being clearly indicated in manufacturing proteins, regulating proteins and transferring information in cells, (RNA later was found in the nucleus) --in short part of proteomics--including various RNA cell types such as messenger RNA (mRNA), transfer RNA (tRNA), ribosomal RNA, and other smaller RNA that performs various functions; a lot is now known about RNA and how it functions along with DNA.
Still, imagine my surprise last night, when posting on my Twitter feed, some science news, I ran across an interesting (albeit controversial) research that indicated that RNA might be involved in memory retrieval (fear based memory) between members of the same species, and further that such memory or fear based learning might be transferred via RNA! (?)
The web article titled: RNA injected from one sea slug into another may transfer memories -- appeared on the Science News website at the following link: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rna-injected-one-sea-slug-another-may-transfer-memories .
Now there has been a lot of recent research discussing the formation and retrieval of long term memories as a process that is not so well understood or verified by research as it was once thought to be, but this article makes the following argument: that some types of RNA molecules, and not linkages between nerve cells, are key to long-term memory storage.
As amazing as such an argument might be, the puzzling aspect of this research (anomaly) that was discovered was that after portions of RNA were removed from the brains of sea slugs who had fear based memories, and then implanted (or injected) into other sea slugs that were naive about the fear based situation, they mysteriously showed the avoidant behaviors in the same manner as the organisms that had initially learned the fear responses.
Now, since I've worked as a counselor and therapist with people who suffer from fear based memories and past learning issues, otherwise known as aversions, phobias, and even traumas as in PTSD, I find it very intriguing that another molecular mechanism might be involved in fear based memory storage and retrieval. (Albeit among sea slugs). Now Aplysia are the same sea slugs studied by Kandel et al in neuro research--that has held up with applicability to neuro based research applications applied as a model to human learning.
If the research holds up, that is, if RNA is involved in fear based memory retrieval, the RNA might open itself to a number of new ways to block the expression of fear based memories, even specific ones. One can only hope that in the multiple ways that RNA interacts with proteins, and even the epigenome, that some sort of manipulation (possibly an edit) might be able to apply to a whole new kind of treatment that blocks specific memories contained in the learning history of an individual in question.
Now to use the expression, some sort of manipulation--as I did in the preceding paragraph, doesn't seem to offer up much rationale for how to do this, and perhaps is only a hope. But if RNA mediation and protein expression is involved in fear based memory retrieval and recall of responses to fear based events are more than just an entire fear based response--but also a response to a specific kind of stimulus event in that individual's history as well--would it then be possible to disrupt the pairing of the fear response with that stimulus--i.e., if the specific memory of it is stored with the response? (Some have called this emotional processing).
For example, human beings may have a species specific defense reaction (SSDR) to fire in general while an individual with a history of a burn injury has the same SSDR response but it is intensified and overactivated by remembering and/or reliving the trauma of a specific incident--when encountering the stimulus of fire--or an observed or modeled fire situation.
Maybe a little far fetched if thinking about RNA editing, but I really do believe we will eventually be able to edit or block memories associated with a specific trauma in an individual's memory. Many will herald that day as a major breakthrough for many who suffer from PTSD and other fear based mental illness. While some aspects of PTSD may be based on conditioned responses associated with a failure of extinction based memory--possibly due to the enhancement of the sensory overload of the original event, these fear based memories may be qualitatively different from so called normal memories; making them amenable to and easier to separate out from general memories anyway. ~~LJK
How Editing RNA--Not DNA--Could Cure Disease in the Future
https://buff.ly/2FJmf6V
CRISPR technology adapted to edit RNA
https://buff.ly/2rLtVA4
So all the way, from RNA being clearly indicated in manufacturing proteins, regulating proteins and transferring information in cells, (RNA later was found in the nucleus) --in short part of proteomics--including various RNA cell types such as messenger RNA (mRNA), transfer RNA (tRNA), ribosomal RNA, and other smaller RNA that performs various functions; a lot is now known about RNA and how it functions along with DNA.
Still, imagine my surprise last night, when posting on my Twitter feed, some science news, I ran across an interesting (albeit controversial) research that indicated that RNA might be involved in memory retrieval (fear based memory) between members of the same species, and further that such memory or fear based learning might be transferred via RNA! (?)
The web article titled: RNA injected from one sea slug into another may transfer memories -- appeared on the Science News website at the following link: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rna-injected-one-sea-slug-another-may-transfer-memories .
Now there has been a lot of recent research discussing the formation and retrieval of long term memories as a process that is not so well understood or verified by research as it was once thought to be, but this article makes the following argument: that some types of RNA molecules, and not linkages between nerve cells, are key to long-term memory storage.
As amazing as such an argument might be, the puzzling aspect of this research (anomaly) that was discovered was that after portions of RNA were removed from the brains of sea slugs who had fear based memories, and then implanted (or injected) into other sea slugs that were naive about the fear based situation, they mysteriously showed the avoidant behaviors in the same manner as the organisms that had initially learned the fear responses.
Now, since I've worked as a counselor and therapist with people who suffer from fear based memories and past learning issues, otherwise known as aversions, phobias, and even traumas as in PTSD, I find it very intriguing that another molecular mechanism might be involved in fear based memory storage and retrieval. (Albeit among sea slugs). Now Aplysia are the same sea slugs studied by Kandel et al in neuro research--that has held up with applicability to neuro based research applications applied as a model to human learning.
If the research holds up, that is, if RNA is involved in fear based memory retrieval, the RNA might open itself to a number of new ways to block the expression of fear based memories, even specific ones. One can only hope that in the multiple ways that RNA interacts with proteins, and even the epigenome, that some sort of manipulation (possibly an edit) might be able to apply to a whole new kind of treatment that blocks specific memories contained in the learning history of an individual in question.
Now to use the expression, some sort of manipulation--as I did in the preceding paragraph, doesn't seem to offer up much rationale for how to do this, and perhaps is only a hope. But if RNA mediation and protein expression is involved in fear based memory retrieval and recall of responses to fear based events are more than just an entire fear based response--but also a response to a specific kind of stimulus event in that individual's history as well--would it then be possible to disrupt the pairing of the fear response with that stimulus--i.e., if the specific memory of it is stored with the response? (Some have called this emotional processing).
For example, human beings may have a species specific defense reaction (SSDR) to fire in general while an individual with a history of a burn injury has the same SSDR response but it is intensified and overactivated by remembering and/or reliving the trauma of a specific incident--when encountering the stimulus of fire--or an observed or modeled fire situation.
Maybe a little far fetched if thinking about RNA editing, but I really do believe we will eventually be able to edit or block memories associated with a specific trauma in an individual's memory. Many will herald that day as a major breakthrough for many who suffer from PTSD and other fear based mental illness. While some aspects of PTSD may be based on conditioned responses associated with a failure of extinction based memory--possibly due to the enhancement of the sensory overload of the original event, these fear based memories may be qualitatively different from so called normal memories; making them amenable to and easier to separate out from general memories anyway. ~~LJK
How Editing RNA--Not DNA--Could Cure Disease in the Future
https://buff.ly/2FJmf6V
CRISPR technology adapted to edit RNA
https://buff.ly/2rLtVA4
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