3 ms·
Not to mention viroids - tightly balled RNAs of only a few hundred (220!) nucleotides which, due to the shape they form, coerce replication machinery to reprodu
by minikomi 15y ago
Not to mention viroids - tightly balled RNAs of only a few hundred (220!) nucleotides which, due to the shape they form, coerce replication machinery to reproduce them. Definitely on the very edge of what can be considered "alive".
Edit: that is to say, they don't encode any proteins - they simply loop back on each other and the shape does all the work.
- irollboozers 15y agoThe shape is more important as a container, transporting other silencing RNA or miRNA. People have developed nano cages that act as slippery shells to deliver a payload, and so far some insanely promising results in mammalian cells. For what it's worth, I think this will be the mechanism for majority of gene based drug delivery in 10 years.
- minikomi 15y agoOh really? cool. It's been a while since I read anything about viroids. They somehow bundle miRNAs?
- irollboozers 15y agoIt's more about using DNA/RNA nanostructures. Imagine a 3d tetrahedron with toehold overhangs made entirely of one strand of DNA/RNA that unravel to deliver the payload. From what I remember, they are soluble through lipid bilayers, making them very effective for delivery. Imagine a very small 3d hotpocket that can deliver small siRNA or miRNA. Even better, you can program a signal amplification or another message into the structure itself, e.g. joining other structures to form lock-key mechanisms like legos.