Posted on 06/14/2021 9:14:14 AM PDT by Red Badger
In a discovery that challenges long-held dogma in biology, researchers show that mammalian cells can convert RNA sequences back into DNA, a feat more common in viruses than eukaryotic cells.
Cells contain machinery that duplicates DNA into a new set that goes into a newly formed cell. That same class of machines, called polymerases, also build RNA messages, which are like notes copied from the central DNA repository of recipes, so they can be read more efficiently into proteins. But polymerases were thought to only work in one direction DNA into DNA or RNA. This prevents RNA messages from being rewritten back into the master recipe book of genomic DNA. Now, Thomas Jefferson University researchers provide the first evidence that RNA segments can be written back into DNA, which potentially challenges the central dogma in biology and could have wide implications affecting many fields of biology.
“This work opens the door to many other studies that will help us understand the significance of having a mechanism for converting RNA messages into DNA in our own cells,” says Richard Pomerantz, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Thomas Jefferson University. “The reality that a human polymerase can do this with high efficiency, raises many questions.” For example, this finding suggests that RNA messages can be used as templates for repairing or re-writing genomic DNA.
The work was published June 11th, 2021, in the journal Science Advances.
Together with first author Gurushankar Chandramouly and other collaborators, Dr. Pomerantz’s team started by investigating one very unusual polymerase, called polymerase theta. Of the 14 DNA polymerases in mammalian cells, only three do the bulk of the work of duplicating the entire genome to prepare for cell division. The remaining 11 are mostly involved in detecting and making repairs when there’s a break or error in the DNA strands. Polymerase theta repairs DNA, but is very error-prone and makes many errors or mutations. The researchers therefore noticed that some of polymerase theta’s “bad” qualities were ones it shared with another cellular machine, albeit one more common in viruses — the reverse transcriptase. Like Pol theta, HIV reverse transcriptase acts as a DNA polymerase, but can also bind RNA and read RNA back into a DNA strand.
In a series of elegant experiments, the researchers tested polymerase theta against the reverse transcriptase from HIV, which is one of the best studied of its kind. They showed that polymerase theta was capable of converting RNA messages into DNA, which it did as well as HIV reverse transcriptase, and that it actually did a better job than when duplicating DNA to DNA. Polymerase theta was more efficient and introduced fewer errors when using an RNA template to write new DNA messages, than when duplicating DNA into DNA, suggesting that this function could be its primary purpose in the cell.
The group collaborated with Dr. Xiaojiang S. Chen’s lab at USC and used x-ray crystallography to define the structure and found that this molecule was able to change shape in order to accommodate the more bulky RNA molecule — a feat unique among polymerases.
“Our research suggests that polymerase theta’s main function is to act as a reverse transcriptase,” says Dr. Pomerantz. “In healthy cells, the purpose of this molecule may be toward RNA-mediated DNA repair. In unhealthy cells, such as cancer cells, polymerase theta is highly expressed and promotes cancer cell growth and drug resistance. It will be exciting to further understand how polymerase theta’s activity on RNA contributes to DNA repair and cancer-cell proliferation.”
Reference: “Polθ reverse transcribes RNA and promotes RNA-templated DNA repair” by Gurushankar Chandramouly, Jiemin Zhao, Shane McDevitt, Timur Rusanov, Trung Hoang, Nikita Borisonnik, Taylor Treddinick, Felicia Wednesday Lopezcolorado, Tatiana Kent, Labiba A. Siddique, Joseph Mallon, Jacklyn Huhn, Zainab Shoda, Ekaterina Kashkina, Alessandra Brambati, Jeremy M. Stark, Xiaojiang S. Chen and Richard T. Pomerantz, 11 June 2021, Science Advances. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abf1771
This research was supported by NIH grants 1R01GM130889-01 and 1R01GM137124-01, and R01CA197506 and R01CA240392. This research was also supported in part by a Tower Cancer Research Foundation grant. The authors report no conflicts of interest.
“Will this process work on the RNA in the Covid vaccines?”
Possibly.
No one knows.
Thank you for asking a relevant question rather than jumping to an uneducated conclusion.
To answer your excellent question, no, for a few reasons. First, the mRNA from the COVID-19 vaccines is released into the cell cytoplasm, which is outside the nucleus. The only way in or out of the cell nucleus is through the nuclear pores, which require the use of a transport protein. For mRNA, the transport proteins only function in one direction: out. mRNA is produced inside the nucleus all the time. That’s how every amino acid and protein in your entire body gets produced, billions of times every second of your life. Enzymes create mRNA strings from your DNA, then transport proteins move those mRNA strings out into the cytoplasm where ribosomes make whatever’s encoded. There is no path in.
If Harry Potter came along and cast a magic spell to put mRNA from the vaccine inside your cell nucleus, transport proteins would immediately move it back out.
If Harry Potter cast a magic spell to stop transport proteins from moving mRNA out of your cell nucleus so the vaccine mRNA could stay there, all your cells would be dead very quickly and still nothing would happen.
What this research is saying is that under specific conditions created in a lab, it is possible for a specific type of enzyme to take RNA and synthesize DNA. The research said nothing about this happening actively or regularly in any living human cells and it said nothing about the DNA that gets created actually being integrated into the genome. Were this to happen, it’s highly likely that cell would immediately die.
This research is mostly important for understanding DNA repair and where it can go wrong because that helps us understand the genesis of cancers. It has nothing to do with the mRNA vaccines. But some will use any headline with the right keywords to push their fantasy narrative.
Oh hey, somebody else who didn’t sleep through biology class!
Hello, FRiend!
No one knows.
And they AIN’T checking.
I’m old enough to remember the ‘76 swine flu vaccine debacle.
I don’t think the eggheads who gave us that slept through bio class.
Though the nation wished they had.
“And they AIN’T checking”
Not sure if that’s true.
Someone will.
Will the FDA ask for an analysis of this for approval? Probably.
Genotoxicity studies are not being run on any of the CoupFlu vaxxes.
None of them.
Because eggheads are omniscient.
“Genotoxicity studies are not being run on any of the CoupFlu vaxxes.”
How do you know that?
Yes, 25 people died from a vaccine given out 45 years ago.
And smallpox killed 500,000,000 people in its last 100 years alone. Polio killed, paralyzed, and disfigured millions of children. Measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, whooping cough, diphtheria...
If you want to talk about the balance of risk/reward with vaccines, by all means. That’s an easy one.
Everybody could use an extra digit... More typing, less talking.
All that cell stuff in Biology I made my head swim.
Liked Biology II much better.
Or an extra eyeball or two.......................
The human anatomy and physiology classes I had would not have been fun for you. Understanding the potassium ion gates at the chemical level was a whole thing. But I did love going into prions and viroids. Infectious diseases and the human immune system have always been incredible to me. It’s easy to see God’s hand in the immaculate complexity of it all.
But, in between the virus and the vaccine -
they’ll get you coming *OR* going.
Thanks
Dr. Robert Malone is the inventor of mRNA Vaccine technology & he said so in a podcast discussion that I listened to over the weekend. He said a lot more that is alarming as well. For example, he also said no reproductive studies have been done either. He is concerned that future generations will suffer & actually brought up the ‘thalidomide baby’ situation.
Ping!
So cocksure they know exactly how everything works. Sophomoric arrogance. In my domain, the more you know, the more you realize just how much more there is to discover/know.
As Donald Rumsfeld said “it is the unknown unknowns that keep you you at night and you worry about...”
That applies in spades to these Frankenstein vaccines.
Suggesting this possibility back in the early days of CoVid-19 drew ridicule from some, including FReepers.
It seemed obvious that all the tools existed in the cells already so why couldn't it happen especially with the example of HIV/AIDS.
Remember, cells are soup!
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