The genetics of living cells must be correct. There are errors in the DNA. The land plants do not directly improve the errors in the genome, but rather elaborately in each individual transcript. The moss Physcomitrium patens has been used to transplant machinery into human cells. The corrector started working there as well. The results can be found in the journal.
There is a lot of traffic in a living cell. In land plants, blueprints in the form of DNA can be found in the cell nucleus and in the power plants. The instructions for the building of the proteins are contained in these blueprints. The information about the blueprints is passed on to the cells. The desired parts of the blueprints are created with transcripts. This information is used to make the requiredprotein.
There are errors over time.
This process is not perfect. Over time, there are errors within the DNA that need to be corrected in order to function properly. Plants would lose their energy supply. Instead of improving the slip-ups directly in the blueprint, they are cleaned up in each of the many transcripts by so-calledRNA editing processes.
It would be similar to correcting each book by hand, instead of improving the plates. We don't know why living cells make this effort. Plants spread from water to land as they evolved.
The IZMB team succeeded in using the moss Physcomitrium patens to modify the genes of the Escherichia coli. It was shown that the moss can modify the bacterium's genes.
The Institute of Genetics at the University of Bonn has collaborated with researchers from the Institute of Cellular andMolecular Botany. Elena Lesch reported that the land plant correction mechanism works in humans. This wasn't known before.
The RNA editing machines that only act in the moss introduce changes in the transcript of the cell nucleus in humans.
There are more than 900 targets.
The research team was surprised by the changes made at more than 900 points of attack. The corrector is only responsible for two sites in the moss.
Dr. Mareike Schallenberg-Rdinger says there are more nuclear transcripts in humans than in moss. There are more targets to be attacked by the editors. It is not possible to predict where the editing machines will make changes in human cells because the editors follow a particular code.
More information about the basic mechanisms of the correctors can be found in the abundance ofRNA editing targets in human cells. A corrector could be used to induce a specific change in human cells.
"If we could correct faulty sites in the genetic code, this would potentially also offer starting points for the treatment of hereditary diseases." It's not yet known whether that will work.
More information: Elena Lesch et al, Plant mitochondrial RNA editing factors can perform targeted C-to-U editing of nuclear transcripts in human cells, Nucleic Acids Research (2022). DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkac752 Journal information: Nucleic Acids Research
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