This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Human cells turn genetic instructions into proteins with great precision. Critical for the translation of this information are transfer RNAs, or tRNAs, small molecules that read the genetic code three letters at a time and bring the matching building blocks of proteins, the amino acids, to the cell's protein-making machinery, the ribosome.
Every cell holds millions of tRNAs, but only some are busy at work in the ribosome. Until now, scientists have studied them by measuring all of the tRNAs in a cell at once, assuming this gives a fair picture of the ones actually doing the job. In a new study in Nature Methods, researchers at the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona describe a technique that looks only at the tRNAs on ribosomes busy making proteins.
It shows that the tRNAs at work can differ from the cell's overall stock, particularly when cells are under stress, a difference that standard techniques miss. "The field has largely assumed that sequencing all the tRNAs in a cell gives a good picture of the ones working in protein production. Our work shows that this is not necessarily the case, particularly under stress," said Dr.
Mie Monti, the study's first author. When cells were starved of leucine, one of the building blocks of protein, the team saw the tRNAs piling up on the ribosome, when the expectation would be for tRNAs to disappear entirely. The results suggest some changes inside cells may have gone unnoticed.
Cancer cells, for example, are known to use tRNAs differently from healthy cells, but Monti says this had only been studied by counting every tRNA in the cell. Human cells also carry several versions of many tRNAs. Using viral infections as an example, Monti says the new approach could show exactly which tRNA molecule a virus relies on.
In principle, that could point to new ways of blocking an infection. The biggest implication of the study is that it might accelerate the development of a new kind of medicine for genetic diseases. About one in 10 of the genetic errors known to cause inherited disease is a typo that tells the cell to stop making a protein too early.
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