Imagine your DNA as a set of instructions or a recipe book that tells your body how to make everything it needs to function, from proteins to cells. Every time the body needs to build something, it reads these instructions. But sometimes, the body can make small edits to these instructions—this is where RNA editing comes in.
RNA editing is like a proofreading process that happens after your DNA’s instructions are copied. Instead of just following the recipe exactly, your cells can make tiny changes to the instructions. These changes can help the body adapt to different situations by creating new versions of proteins that might be better suited to certain tasks.
In humans and fruit flies alike, RNA editing prevents autoimmune responses and adjusts protein functions. However, in humans, most editing occurs in non-coding regions, with only a small fraction leading to changes in protein function. In contrast, in flies, the majority of RNA editing events occur in sequences that directly produce proteins.
Given the abundance of RNA editing events that lead to changes in protein-coding sequences in flies, a major challenge is determining which of these thousands of events is biologically important and worth investigating.
Researchers from Bar-Ilan University in Israel have now pinpointed one such event and determined its pivotal role in the sense of smell and social interactions of Drosophila (fruit flies). The findings of their study appear in the journal Science Advances.
By Bar-Ilan University
Article can be accessed on: phys.org