Charge reduction and thermodynamic stabilization of substrate RNAs inhibit RNA editing.

ABSTRACT: African trypanosomes cause a parasitic disease known as sleeping sickness. Mitochondrial transcript maturation in these organisms requires a RNA editing reaction that is characterized by the insertion and deletion of U-nucleotides into otherwise non-functional mRNAs. Editing represents an ideal target for a parasite-specific therapeutic intervention since the reaction cycle is absent in the infected host. In addition, editing relies on a macromolecular protein complex, the editosome, that only exists in the parasite. Therefore, all attempts to search for editing interfering compounds have been focused on molecules that bind to proteins of the editing machinery. However, in analogy to other RNA-driven biochemical pathways it should be possible to stall the reaction by targeting its substrat

SUBMITTER: Leeder WM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4350841 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature