RNA modifications can encrypt the RNA code and are responsible for a very sophisticated control of RNA function. A Danish-German research team has shown that modified RNA bases have a great impact on the dynamics of gene expression from DNA to functional RNA. The study yields important new insight into how the basis of RNA modifications can affect the function of mature RNA molecules.The genetic material, DNA, is located in the cell nucleus where gene expression is controlled. DNA is copied into the less stable RNA for translation into protein in the cytoplasm (mRNA or protein-coding RNA) or for mediating independent functions as non-coding RNA. RNA is processed through several maturation steps to ensure its proper expression and localization. One of these maturation steps is called splicing. The non-functional introns are excised from the newly made RNA in the splicing process to build a mature and functional RNA consisting of exons only.
RNA is composed of four bases (abbreviated A, U, G and C), thereby disseminating its message with a fairly simple code. In recent years, research has shown an unprecedented impact of RNA modifications at all steps of the maturation process. More than a hundred RNA modifications have been identified with roles in both inhibiting and facilitating binding to proteins, DNA and other RNA molecules. This encryption by RNA modification is a way to prevent the message of the RNA in being read by the wrong recipients.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @01:14AM (1 child)
What will governments that want to ban encryption do now?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @07:49PM
They will just engineer a backdoor into it through genetic engineering I guess.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Monday June 25 2018, @01:16AM (1 child)
Alien messages embedded in the human genome.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by darkfeline on Monday June 25 2018, @08:59AM
"Xyfix has planted his seed within this organism."
"Jxiths has planted his seed within Xyfix's mother."
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 25 2018, @01:51AM
When fully decrypted, it is necessary to read the message all the way to the end. "This is alpha software, in testing stage. It is anticipated that a complete rewrite will be necessary before beta is released. Testing will be continued is a galaxy far, far away."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @02:17AM (5 children)
What they describe is more like different file formats.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday June 25 2018, @05:09AM
Indeed, according to that description, HTML is encrypted text, because the tags don't end up in the ultimately shown text.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday June 25 2018, @06:38AM
Its actually that no one would read his inane paper if he just mentioned that corrupted RNA yields uncertain binding to proteins.
But if he could slip in the word encryption why then, he's a genius and everyone will read it.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 25 2018, @07:04AM (2 children)
Or message encrypted with the receiver's public key? Like in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @11:46AM (1 child)
Its like trying to open a mp3 with a word processor. Theres no reason to think you would be able to do that. Of course you could add some capability to the word processor to do this but why?
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Monday June 25 2018, @03:49PM
To decipher the file format.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 25 2018, @09:08AM
Molecular biologist here. I can't really see how they could make the encrypted message reversible to be read again. The best comparison I can get is that mRNA processing is hashing.