O INSA promove mais uma Conferência Ricardo Jorge no próximo dia 29 de Abril, pelas 12h00, no Auditório do Instituto em Lisboa.
A Conferência, subordinada ao tema: Non-coding RNAs with catalytic properties: From fundamental biology research to their application in biomedicine, será conduzida por Alexandre Teixeira, Investigador do Departamento de Genética do INSA.
Esta iniciativa pretende promover o debate, entre profissionais de saúde e a comunidade científica, em torno de sínteses de conhecimentos ou discussão de conceitos e práticas relacionados com a missão, as competências ou as áreas de trabalho do Instituto.
Esta é uma sessão aberta a todos os interessados. Esperamos por si!!
Resumo da apresentação:
The central dogma of molecular biology, as stated by the Nobel prize winner Francis Crick, is that information encoded in DNA as genes is passed on to intermediate short-lived molecules of RNA by the process of transcription. It is from RNA, in turn, that proteins are made. Many of these proteins perform the function of enzymes, i.e. control specific biochemical reactions in living cells. Interestingly, not all the RNAs transcribed are translated. A number of non-coding RNAs, including small nuclear RNAs, Ribozymes or Aptamers, are implicated in the regulation of transcriptional and translational processes. Moreover, RNA can also act as an enzyme (the so-called ribozyme). Ribozymes, like protein enzymes, form specific enzyme-substrate complexes. But in this case, they form highly sequence-specific RNA-RNA interactions between the ribozyme’s catalytic domain and the substrate molecules. Normally they catalyze the cleavage or ligation of the RNA phosphodiester back-bone. Natural ribozymes or other types of non-coding RNAs such as Aptamers (small RNAs that have properties which resemble monoclonal antibodies) are widespread in the organisms and can be manipulated and artificially engineered with the aim of addressing their activity to specific RNA or protein targets. Gene expression knockdown, mRNA repair, protein inactivation and recognition using these techniques has represented powerful research tools and promising diagnostic/therapeutic agents for human diseases such as virus infection and cancer. In this talk, an overview on Ribozymes and Aptamers features along with their use in diagnoses and therapies will be given.