Micro RNAs in Tfh regulation: Small molecules with a big impact

Small RNAs make big impact in cardiac repair.

Thinking big with small molecules

Synthetic chemistry has enabled scientists to explore the frontiers of cell biology, limited only by the laws of chemical bonding and reactivity. As we investigate biological questions of increasing complexity, new chemical technologies can provide systems-level views of cellular function. Here we discuss some of the molecular probes that illustrate this shift from a "one compound, one gene" pa...

Small Pores with a Big Impact.

The guard cells surrounding stomatal pores of leaves are, at once, the best characterized and some of the most intriguing of cells in the plant kingdom. There are, of course, some very basic reasons for our interest in stomatal guard cells. The stomatal pore connects the inner air space of the leaf with the atmosphere, providing a route for gaseous exchange that bypasses the otherwise impermeab...

Small molecules for big tasks.

One of the most important achievements in the post-genome era is discovery of microRNAs (miRNAs), which widely exist from simple-genome organisms such as viruses and bacteria to complex-genome organisms such as plants and animals. miRNAs are single-stranded non-coding RNAs of 18– 25 nucleotides in length, which are generated from larger precursors that are transcribed from non-coding genes. As ...

Small RNAs are raising big expectations.

F ive years ago there were little more than 200 known microRNAs (miRNAs) — small regulatory nucleic acids that bind to complementary sites on mRNAs and prevent their translation into protein. Today, that number has swelled to more than 700 and counting. The explosion in knowledge about these small, noncoding RNAs, which appear to be evolutionarily ancient but were discovered less than two decad...