During my time getting an advanced degree I spent a lot of time learning about RNA and that contributed to COVID discourse being so disconcerting. It wasn’t my first time learning about RNA vaccines, I worked with human applications of Ivermectin, and I even looked at an old textbook that had a chapter about coronaviruses and fears about possible mutations.
I learned about cool shit like interfering RNA (RNAi) and how you need RNAi to have proper growth of hands in the womb. There was this theory that DNA and protein are just convenient ways for RNA to express itself. There was this theory about “the RNA World” that was the original self-replicating nucleic acid. I learned that only ~2% of the human genome accounts for protein translation and some of it encodes RNA and we (aren’t/weren’t) sure what they were for. That section was really cool. It was kind of cool to get to the point where we were talking about viruses and RNA because it took all the building blocks that went all the way back to high school biology and physics as necessary building blocks to get to these awesome ideas about the nature of biology.
Yeah, I’m a contrarian, how did you tell
why flower white
Cuz an automatic system plants cells have where if there’s something producing a LOT of RNA inside the cell, especially a lot of the exact same RNA, the cell say “this gotta be a virus”, so it takes a copy/negative of that hypercopied-RNA and use that to recognize all the copies and destroys them before they get translated or whatever that RNA does (some RNA is translated into proteins, some control the expression of other genes, some is viral genome, some are ribozymes, it doesn’t matter).
Oh, also, besides destroying the RNA copies, the plant cell can also find where the fuck is the DNA from where all those copies are coming and shut’s that thing down methylating the shit out of it, which renders that stretch of DNA innaccessible to the proteins that produce RNA from it. (I think sometimes there aint no DNA cuz it can be an RNA virus which produces RNA copies from RNA as template but it’s a very tiny percent of cases OK? )
So yes, it’s bassically plant adaptative “immune system”
Anyways, you don’t need several copies of a gene for the plant to silence it, but just a strong promoter (the part of the gene that tells the plant when, where, and how much the gene should express ie make RNA copies of it). Plant virus have strong promoters. So that’s what people used to use when making transgenic plants, but oops sometimes the plant had the transgene yet it didn’t express, turns out thanks to RNAis
Plant virus have strong promoters.
Yes, we do.
I think sometimes there aint no DNA cuz it can be an RNA virus which produces RNA copies from RNA as template but it’s a very tiny percent of cases OK?
The vast majority of plant viruses are RNA viruses, so it’s pretty common when dealing with infections. But even then, some stretches of viral RNA can be similar to plant genome DNA sequences so the plant shuts down its own genes while trying to silence the virus. This can sometimes get out of hand and contribute to the symptoms of infection on a plant (most of which are already caused by plant immune responses). RNAi also plays a role in plant immunity against fungi and other plant parasites.
I would also add that RNAi also has non-immune system functions during normal plant development where it regulates gene expression, and RNAi is also found in many other organisms, in fact, in most eukaryotes, although it’s most widely studied in plants.
Yep,
I thought most RNA virus had a system where they first make DNA copies of them to then make mRNAs to make their proteins, ¿sometimes several different ones that work as pseudo “chromosomes”? and ¿sometimes a different DNA copy to make RNA genome copies?.
The main thing I remember about virology is that is a clusterfuck of different systems.
Also, about RNAi as regulatory systems, I understand there’s a shitton of different overlapping systems and I don’t know if RNAi is now a blanket term for all or several of those, or it’s a specific one.
I thought most RNA virus had a system where they first make DNA copies of them to then make mRNAs to make their proteins
No, only retroviruses (like HIV, for example) do this which is why they have a reverse transcriptase enzyme that makes a DNA copy of their RNA genome. All other RNA viruses have an RNA-dependent RNA-polymerase (RdRp) which directly makes complementary RNAs from a single stranded RNA template. At some point in this process, a double stranded RNA intermediate is formed which is the specific form recognized by the RNAi machinery.
sometimes several different ones that work as pseudo “chromosomes”? and ¿sometimes a different DNA copy to make RNA genome copies?
You might be thinking, again, of retroviruses which integrate their genome, once in DNA form, into the genome of the host cell (e.g. HIV), or pararetroviruses who’s genome, in DNA form, stays in the nucleus of the host cell, but not integrated into the genome (e.g. Hepatitis B virus). This is sometimes called a “minichromosome”. From all of these, mRNA is made to translate into proteins, and new RNA genome copies are created which leave the cell as parts of the newly created viruses (or which are first copied back to DNA in the case of pararetroviruses).
The main thing I remember about virology is that is a clusterfuck of different systems.
It does integrate a lot of branches of biology and requires quite a bit of interdisciplinarity, and you have to deal with the host, virus and the environment at the same time - which is partly why I like it so much.
if RNAi is now a blanket term for all or several of those, or it’s a specific one.
RNAi is the name for the specific mechanism, it can perform multiple functions - like immunity and regulation, but there are of course other immune and regulatory mechanisms. Regulatory RNAi controls gene expression by recognizing hairpins and other double stranded structures in mRNA, to create the short targeting RNAs to either methylate the DNA genome (mostly just in plants), methylate histones, degrade mRNA or block translation on ribosomes - all of which lower the expression of the targeted gene.
Of course, there’s a lot more complexity here, but I hope I’m explaining it at least somewhat decently.
