MicroRNA-mediated RNA epigenetics

By: James V. Kohl | Published on: January 4, 2016

RNA Epigenetics

DNA isn’t the only decorated nucleic acid in the cell. Modifications to RNA molecules are much more common and are critical for regulating diverse biological processes.

Excerpt:

…specific alternative splicing types, such as intron retention, exon skipping, and alternative first or last exon usage, were highly correlated with m6A decoration. And silencing the m6A methylating protein METTL3 affected global gene expression and alternative splicing patterns in both human and mouse cells.2

My comment: “Silencing” a protein effects global gene expression, which is how gene expression affects behavior.

See also: From Fertilization to Adult Sexual Behavior

Excerpt:

Small intranuclear proteins also participate in generating alternative splicing techniques of pre-mRNA and, by this mechanism, contribute to sexual differentiation in at least two species, Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans (Adler and Hajduk, 1994; de Bono, Zarkower, and Hodgkin, 1995; Ge, Zuo, and Manley, 1991; Green, 1991; Parkhurst and Meneely, 1994; Wilkins, 1995; Wolfner, 1988). That similar proteins perform functions in humans suggests the possibility that some human sex differences may arise from alternative splicings of otherwise identical genes.

My comment: RNA methylation and DNA methylation are no longer just linked to sex difference in cell types. They are linked to all differences in biophysically constrained cell type differentiation in all individuals of all living genera.
It is perfectly clear that ecological variation links atoms to ecosystems via the ability of nutrient energy-dependent microRNAs and adhesion proteins to stabilize organized genomes in the context of the supercoiled DNA that protects all living genera from virus-driven genomic entropy.
Nothing currently known about biophysically constrained RNA-mediated protein folding chemistry during thermodynamic cycles of protein biosynthesis and degradation has changed in the past 50 years (see Dobzhansky, 1964).  When will everyone simply admit that Dobzhansky (1973) was correct when he reported that:

…the so-called alpha chains of hemoglobin have identical sequences of amino acids in man and the chimpanzee, but they differ in a single amino acid (out of 141) in the gorilla. ( p. 127)

Are serious scientists trying to be polite when they destroy all the claims of neo-Darwinian theorists by doing it gradually?


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