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disclaimer: only read the abstract. The original paper, linked in the article mentions the mRNA messaging. Intuitively that roughly makes sense -- other cells m

disclaimer: only read the abstract. The original paper, linked in the article mentions the mRNA messaging. Intuitively that roughly makes sense -- other cells might have the luxury of being able to directly talk to each other, through physical contact or proximity, but with neurons that is made more difficult due to the possibility of extending electric signals. So carrying information through mRNA might work, but I wonder why mRNA? Why not skip the middle man and go straight for proteins? What's the use of doing it this way? ik I'm anthropomorphizing but it seems to make more sense to just send out proteins to communicate? Or maybe mRNA allows for more finetuning on the other end, and is a more efficient mechanism, since it can be read dozens of times, instead of just being a handful of proteins.....

dekhn 9y ago
it's easy to encapsulate any sequence of mRNA; unless it contains extensive tertiary, while any random sequence of protein is going to fold into an irregular shape and probably also have some catalytic capability (such as proteoltyic) which would degrade the protein coat. That said, GroEL does that (encapsulates various proteins and refolds them).
- jfarlow 9y ago
  And a capsid might be able to store a few proteins, or a few mRNAs. But a few mRNAs deposited into a cell could produce many thousand protiens.
kneel 9y ago
>why mRNA? Why not skip the middle man and go straight for proteins? There is no polypeptide decoding machinery in the cell, proteins are functional chains with a lot of structure. However cells do use external protein structure to communicate with neighboring cells (via protein-protein interactions) now we know they can send messages via RNA as well.
jjoonathan 9y ago
In addition to the reasons already posted, here's another: tuning mRNA degradation rates is something cells are already very good at. If tuning the effective communication distance is desirable, using mRNA would provide a ready-made set of tools to achieve it.
deleted 9y ago
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rcthompson 9y ago
There's no fundamental reason. I expect it was just chance that mRNA evolved as the messenger for this signal. One possibility is that an mRNA signal can be amplified on the receiving end with only basic cell machinery, whereas a protein it other messenger generally requires a dedicated receptor to transduce the signal.
pygy_ 9y ago
mRNA can be re-used by the target cells. It could be an amplification mechanism (assuming fan-out distribution).

dekhn 9y ago

it's easy to encapsulate any sequence of mRNA; unless it contains extensive tertiary, while any random sequence of protein is going to fold into an irregular shape and probably also have some catalytic capability (such as proteoltyic) which would degrade the protein coat. That said, GroEL does that (encapsulates various proteins and refolds them).

jfarlow 9y ago
And a capsid might be able to store a few proteins, or a few mRNAs. But a few mRNAs deposited into a cell could produce many thousand protiens.

kneel 9y ago

>why mRNA? Why not skip the middle man and go straight for proteins? There is no polypeptide decoding machinery in the cell, proteins are functional chains with a lot of structure. However cells do use external protein structure to communicate with neighboring cells (via protein-protein interactions) now we know they can send messages via RNA as well.

jjoonathan 9y ago

In addition to the reasons already posted, here's another: tuning mRNA degradation rates is something cells are already very good at. If tuning the effective communication distance is desirable, using mRNA would provide a ready-made set of tools to achieve it.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rcthompson 9y ago

There's no fundamental reason. I expect it was just chance that mRNA evolved as the messenger for this signal. One possibility is that an mRNA signal can be amplified on the receiving end with only basic cell machinery, whereas a protein it other messenger generally requires a dedicated receptor to transduce the signal.

pygy_ 9y ago

mRNA can be re-used by the target cells. It could be an amplification mechanism (assuming fan-out distribution).