Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medication Awarded for Discovery of MicroRNA Gene Regulation

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medication Awarded for Discovery of MicroRNA Gene Regulation

By Tanya Lewis

Each cell in our physique incorporates the identical set of genetic directions, or DNA. But solely a few of these genes are expressed in every cell, resulting in the manufacturing of proteins that carry out the cell’s distinctive capabilities. The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medication was awarded on Monday to U.S. scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the invention of microRNA, a molecule that performs this vital regulatory course of.

The invention opened up a brand new discipline in gene regulation, explaining how solely among the many genetic directions in DNA end in purposeful proteins in several cells. The analysis was initially carried out within the tiny worm Caenorhabditis elegans, however the mechanism has since been discovered within the genes of people and most different animals.

Ambros carried out his a part of the work at Harvard College, and he’s at the moment a professor of pure sciences on the College of Massachusetts Medical College. Ruvkun carried out his analysis concurrently at Massachusetts Common Hospital and Harvard Medical College, the place he’s now a professor of genetics.

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“The seminal discovery of microRNA has introduced a new and unexpected mechanism of gene regulation,” Olle Kämpe, vice chair of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medication 2024, stated whereas describing the analysis throughout a press convention in Stockholm on Monday.

In cells, genes are transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA), which is then translated into proteins. Proteins carry out the various very important capabilities inside any cell, whether or not it’s in nerve tissue or muscle or the immune system—or wherever else. Issues with gene operate can result in circumstances corresponding to most cancers, diabetes or autoimmune illness.

As early because the Nineteen Sixties, scientists had found that proteins referred to as transcription components may bind to genes and management what components of these genes obtained transcribed into mRNA. This mechanism was regarded as the first manner genes had been regulated. Nevertheless it turned out to be extra difficult.

Within the Nineteen Eighties, Ambros and Ruvkun had been working collectively as postdoctoral fellows within the laboratory of Robert Horvitz, who gained the 2002 Nobel Prize for describing the genetic regulation of cell loss of life in C. elegans. Researchers working with these organisms had beforehand found two “mutant” genetic types of the roundworm that developed in a different way. Certainly one of them, referred to as lin-4, ends in a bigger worm, whereas the opposite, lin-14, results in a smaller one. Ambros confirmed that the lin-4 gene was by some means negatively regulating the lin-14 gene, but it surely wasn’t clear how.

Later, at Harvard, Ambros labored to “clone” or make copies of the lin-4 gene—however this resulted in a really tiny RNA molecule that was too small to provide a protein. On the identical time, Ruvkun, then at Mass Common and Harvard, was learning lin-14. He discovered that lin-4 was not blocking the manufacturing of lin-14 on the mRNA stage, however reasonably was impeding its translation into proteins at some later stage. Ruvkun and Ambros determined to check their findings and located that a part of the sequence of lin-4 mRNA matched that of lin-14’s mRNA finish area, which isn’t concerned in encoding a protein. They found that the binding of this lin-4 mRNA to lin-14 mRNA prevented the latter from producing a protein; this represented a brand new mechanism of gene regulation, orchestrated by tiny molecules referred to as microRNA.

At first, the researchers thought this mechanism is likely to be distinctive to C. elegans. However in 2000, Ruvkun recognized a second microRNA referred to as let-7 that was current in people and all through the animal kingdom. Scientists now know that people have greater than 1,000 completely different microRNA genes, and that almost all of genes are regulated by microRNA.

The disruption of those microRNA networks is believed to play a job in how cancers develop, pointing towards potential therapies.

Ambros and Ruvkun “were looking at two worms that looked a bit funny and decided to understand why, and then they discovered an entirely new mechanism for gene regulation,” Kämpe stated. “I think that’s beautiful.”

Editor’s Be aware (10/07/24): This story is being up to date.