RNA CATALYSIS OF TRANSLATIONAL REACTIONS

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

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Abstract

This is a proposal to investigate some basic properties of Ribonucleic acids (RNA), continuing work initiated in the earlier grant of the same name. The proposal has two parts. The first is the investigation of the interactions of free amino acids with RNA molecules. This should elucidate the interaction of proteins and peptides with RNA molecules by breaking this interaction into smaller parts. Such amino acid-nucleotide interactions are essential parts of the regulation of genetic activity in healthy and diseased states of all organisms. The second area of investigation is the discovery of RNA catalyses that form acid anhydride bonds to activate amino acids, and that form peptide bonds. If efficient catalysts of such reactions can be found, this would facilitate search for parallel RNA catalysts in contemporary organisms, to see whether such molecules cab have a biomedical role. These two investigations taken together will achieve the overall goal of the original project, which is to demonstrate whether RNA catalysis of genetic translation is possible, and may therefore have an evolutionary or present role in Biology.