Nucleic acids translation

Konev, S.V., 1967, Fluorescence and Phosphorescence of Proteins and Nucleic Acids (translated by S. Uden-friend). Plenum Press, New York, 204 pp. 

If an antibody to the protein of interest is available, it is sometimes possible to use vector sequences, eg, the beta-galactosidase promoter sequence, to direct the transcription of the passenger DNA into messenger RNA and the translation of that mRNA into protein which can be recognized by the antibody. Although this method is somewhat less reHable than the use of nucleic acid probes, specialized vectors are available for this purpose. 

Current analytical methods have difficulty detecting picogram levels of nucleic acids, particularly when high levels of other biopolymers (e.g., proteins) are present. The most widely used assay method employed by the pharmaceutical industry involves a nick translation DNA hybridization method (1). This assay offers high sensitivity and selectivity but has a number of drawbacks. 

Gambacorti-Passerini C., Mologni L, Bertazzoli C., le Coutre P., Marchesi E., Grignani F., Nielsen P.E. In vitro transcription and translation inhibition by anti-promyelocytic leukemia (PML)/re-tinoic acid receptor-alpha and anti-PML peptide nucleic acid. Blood 1996 88 1411-1417. 

Mologni L., Lecoutre P., Nielsen P.E., Gambacorti-Passerini G. Additive anti-sense effects of different PNAs on the in vitro translation of the PML/RAR-alpha gene. Nucleic Acids Res. 1998 26 1934-1938. 

Good L., Nielsen P.E. Inhibition of translation and bacterial growth by peptide nucleic acid targeted to ribosomal RNA. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 1998 95 2073-2076. 

A virus-specific RNA RNA polymerase is needed, since the cell RNA polymerase will generally not copy double-stranded RNA (and ribosomes are not able to translate double-stranded RNA either). A wide variety of modes of viral mRNA synthesis are outlined in Figure. By convention, the chemical sense of the mRNA is considered to be of the plus (+) configuration. The sense of the viral genome nucleic acid is then indicated by a plus if it is the same as the mRNA and a minus if it is of oppposite sense. If the virus has double-stranded DNA (ds DNA), then mRNA synthesis can proceed directly as in uninfected cells. However, if the virus has a singlestranded DNA (ss DNA), then it is first converted to ds DNA and the latter serves as the template for mRNA synthesis with the cell RNA polymerase. 

Kaneda S, Takeishi K, Ayusawa D et al. Role in translation of a triple tandemly repeated sequence in the 5 -untranslated region of human thymidylate synthase mRNA. Nucleic Acids Res 1987 15 1259-1270. 

Brostrom, C. O., andBrostrom, M. A. (1998). Regulation of translational initiation during cellular responses to stress. Prog. Nucleic Acid Res. Mol. Biol. 58, 79—125. 

Arava, Y., Boas, F. E., Brown, P. O., and Herschlag, D. (2005). Dissecting eukaryotic translation and its control by ribosome density mapping. Nucleic Acids Res. 33, 2421-2432. 

Dasso, M. C., and Jackson, R. J. (1989). On the fidelity of mRNA translation in the nuclease-treated rabbit reticulocyte lysate system. Nucleic Acids Res. 17, 3129—3144. 

Novae, O., Guenier, A. S., and Pelletier, J. (2004). Inhibitors of protein synthesis identified by a high throughput multiplexed translation screen. Nucleic Acids Res. 32, 902-915. 

The formation of an aldehyde group on a macromolecule can produce an extremely useful derivative for subsequent modification or conjugation reactions. In their native state, proteins, peptides, nucleic acids, and oligonucleotides contain no naturally occurring aldehyde residues. There are no aldehydes on amino acid side chains, none introduced by post-translational modifications, and no formyl groups on any of the bases or sugars of DNA and RNA. To create reactive aldehydes at specific locations within these molecules opens the possibility of directing modification reactions toward discrete sites within the macromolecule. 

An additional example includes the intracellular transcription and translation of virally encoded genes during intracellular viral replication. In all such instances, the medical consequences of such inappropriate gene (over)expression could be ameliorated/prevented if this expression could be down-regulated. A nucleic-acid-based approach to achieve just this is termed antisense technology . 

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