Determining spatial arrangement, stoichiometry, and substrate specificity of messenger RNA-binding proteins along the gene expression pathway.

我们研究计划的长期目标是研究不同生物体中必需RNA-蛋白质复合物的成熟途径。我们基因的表达在阅读DNA并将其复制为信使RNA（mRNA）（编码模板）的过程中，以及在翻译过程中（模板中的信息转化为蛋白质）受到严格的调控。然而，转录和翻译并不是调节和改变我们遗传物质的唯一步骤。mRNA本身被许多蛋白质结合，这些蛋白质进一步加工、折叠和检查分子以确保其正确性，从而将遗传密码正确地传递到蛋白质中以用于细胞中的不同过程。虽然已经假设所有mRNA分子都是由同一组蛋白质统一加工或成熟的，但我们实验室的最新数据表明，这些成熟步骤中可能存在变化，这些变化是由这些步骤中与不同mRNA相关的蛋白质的差异所定义的。该项目建议通过调查所涉及的mRNA，导致差异的潜在机制及其后果来进一步探索这些mRNA成熟的差异，因为这个过程中的任何失误都可能导致引入导致疾病的错误。总的来说，对我们遗传物质表达过程中任何额外调控步骤的更详细的基本知识将为我们提供对基因调控的更好的基本理解，以及为什么某些疾病可能发展和未来治疗的潜在新切入点。

The long-term objective of our research program is to study the maturation pathways of essential RNA-protein complexes in different organisms. The expression of our genes is tightly regulated both during the reading and copying of our DNA into messenger RNA (mRNA), the encoding template, and during translation, when the information in this template is converted into proteins. However, transcription and translation are not the only steps where regulation and alteration of our genetic material can occur. mRNA itself is bound by many proteins that further process, fold and inspect the molecule to ensure its correctness and hence the correct transmission of genetic code into proteins for diverse processes in the cell. While it has been assumed that all mRNA molecules are uniformly processed, or matured, by the same set of proteins, recent data from our lab suggests that there may be variation in these maturation steps that are defined by the variance in proteins associating with different mRNAs during these steps. This project proposes to further explore these suggested variances in mRNA maturation, by investigating the mRNAs involved, the underlying mechanisms that lead to variances, and their consequences, as any misstep in this process could lead to the introduction of errors resulting in disease. Overall, a more detailed basic knowledge of any additional regulatory steps during the expression of our genetic material will provide us with better fundamental understanding of gene regulation as well as why certain diseases may develop and potential new entry points for treatment in the future.