Subject: RNA, Basic Chemical of Life, Is Capable Of Far More Reactions Than Suspected 
Date: Published: 6/5/92 (86 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology & Science:
    RNA, Basic Chemical of Life, Is Capable
    Of Far More Reactions Than Suspected
    ----
    By Jerry E. Bishop
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    Scientists found that one of the basic chemicals of life,
 which is known as RNA, is capable of far more chemical
 reactions than was suspected.
    The discovery gives biochemists a new tool with which to
 fashion medicines.  It also bolsters a theory that RNA was the
 primeval chemical that triggered the development of life on
 Earth some three billion years ago.
    The discovery that RNA can carry out chemical reactions
 that were thought to be done only by proteins is reported by
 two scientific groups is this week's issue of the journal
 Science.
    RNA is short for ribonucleic acid.  In all living matter,
 RNA is the companion chemical to deoxyribonucleic acid, or
 DNA, the substance that constitutes the genes.  Working
 together, RNA and DNA are the source of all proteins made by
 every living cell.
    The formula for a protein is spelled out in a strand of
 DNA in the nucleus of the cell.  This gene of DNA is copied
 onto a second strand of molecules.  This second strand is
 called messenger RNA because it carries the "message" to make
 a protein.
    The messenger RNA moves out to tiny protein factories,
 called ribosomes, scattered about the cell.  There, a second
 type of RNA, called ribosomal RNA, picks up the message and
 serves as a mold for the formation of a protein from a few
 score simple amino acids.
    For decades, the prevailing belief has been that only
 proteins can act as chemical catalysts in living matter,
 triggering chemical reactions such as the linking together of
 amino acids into other proteins.  But this belief was
 shattered when two U. S. chemists found in the late 1970s and
 early 1980s that RNA could catalyze a particular chemical
 reaction.
    Specifically, the two chemists found that RNA could cut
 itself into pieces and splice itself back together again.  The
 discovery that RNA could catalyze chemical reactions with
 itself brought the 1989 Nobel Prize to Thomas R. Cech of the
 University of Colorado and Sidney Altman of Yale University.
    In the newest reports, researchers reported that RNA can
 actually trigger chemical reactions involving non-RNA
 substances.  Both of the new-found chemical reactions involve
 amino acids.
    A team of scientists at the Sinsheimer Laboratories at the
 University of California in Santa Cruz reported that they had
 found that if all the proteins were leached out of a
 ribosome, leaving only the ribosomal RNA, the ribosome is
 still capable of linking amino acids together.
    The second team, from Dr. Cech's laboratory at the
 University of Colorado in Boulder, found that the RNA can
 catalyze a chemical reaction that cuts loose an amino acid
 from another molecule, a step that immediately precedes the
 reaction discovered by the California scientists.
    "These new findings fuel longstanding speculation that RNA
 played the central role in the origin of life," declared
 biologist Norman R. Pace of Indiana University in a
 commentary on the discoveries.  The findings mean that RNA has
 a capability of not only reproducing itself but also of
 making the primitive proteins that proceed to make all the
 other chemicals of life.
    An opposing view, that DNA was the first chemical of life,
 has foundered on the scientists' inability to figure out how
 DNA could make itself without the aid of proteins.
    Understanding RNA's chemical powers should help lead to
 new weapons against viruses, such as the hepatitis and AIDS
 viruses, that use their own RNA to destroy human cells.  At
 least two new biotechnology companies are attempting to
 exploit the ability of RNA to trigger chemical reactions.
 Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals Inc. was formed by U. S. Biochemical
 Corp. to exploit Dr. Cech's discoveries.  A second startup
 company, Innovir Laboratories Inc. in New York, hopes to
 exploit Dr. Altman's RNA research.

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