In research led by Stanford University in the United States, scientists have revealed that the human body has RNA structures that are smaller than viruses, named “obelisks”. These mini-RNAs that live in the intestines and mouth are not only extremely tiny but also powerful The unique nucleic acid sequence challenges the traditional academic definition of life.
The scientific community has discovered life forms that are smaller than viruses, called “Viroids”, which only exist in plants. They have a single-stranded circular RNA structure and do not have the coat protein of viruses, but they are still infectious, usually through seeds. or pollen spread, which can make infected plants sick.
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However, recent studies have shown that viroids are not limited to plants. Scientists have successively found evidence of viroid circular RNAs in nucleic acid sequence databases of animals, bacteria and other life forms. A team from Stanford University developed software to analyze a large number of human microbial nucleic acid sequence databases to find more evidence of circular RNA sequences.
Living up to expectations, the team discovered nearly 30,000 RNA loops (obelisks), each consisting of about a thousand bases. Scientists speculated from the nucleic acid sequence that they should form a rod-shaped structure, and used their imagination to name the new RNA an obelisk (a long and narrow monument common in ancient Egypt and West Asia, which can be used as a sundial).
The human body has many
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Some obelisk sequences encode proteins involved in RNA replication and are therefore more complex than known viroids. However, like viroids, it does not encode the coat protein found only in viruses. Although the findings were published in a scientific journal without peer review, they were uploaded to the preprint journal website bioRxiv in January.
Analyzing human samples from all continents around the world, obelisks are found in 7% of human gut bacteria and half of oral bacteria. Obelisks of microorganisms found in various parts of the body have unique RNA sequences. Since it is widely present in the human body, it is speculated that it may have an impact on health.
Cell biologist Mark Peifer commented: “This is really incredible. The deeper the research, the more unexpected discoveries are made.” The obelisk is the smallest medium known to transmit messages that cells can read. , the uniqueness increases human understanding of the genetic diversity of microbial ecosystems. The discovery also raises important questions: Did the virus evolve from the obelisk? Or did the virus come first and then degenerate into simpler structures? This will be an interesting subject in the evolution of life.
(The first picture is a schematic diagram, source:pixabay）
2024-02-20 22:23:03
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