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TRR 319:  RMaP: RNA Modification and Processing

Subject Area Biology
Medicine
Term since 2021
Website Homepage
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 439669440
 
RNA biogenesis and maturation as a research topic continues to lead to groundbreaking discoveries of fundamental impact on daily life, as recently evidenced by the 2020 nobel prize for CRISPR/Cas, or the continued press coverage of RNA vaccines. Over the past decades, RNA science has steadily produced ever new and highly impactful discoveries that revealed fundamental principles by which gene expression is regulated. Among the latter, only the field of RNA editing contained elements of both, processing and modifications. Other groundbreaking discoveries focused almost exclusively on processing, e.g. in RNA splicing, RNA decay, and RNAi. Of note, CRISPR/Cas was originally discovered as an RNA-guided RNA processing system. The recent re-emergence of RNA modifications has alerted the community to the fact that RNA processing events are shaped by a yet invisible extra layer of regulation. RNA modifications are alterations of the chemical structure of RNA, which encompass a range of chemical reactions including deamination, isomerization, methylations of ribose or nucleobases, and more sophisticated conjugates. Given the widespread occurrence of RNA modifications in all domains of life, RNA processing and modifications pathways must have evolved under mutual influence. However, despite the massive surge of RNA modification research, the interplay between RNA processing and RNA modification pathways has received little attention thus far. Until a few years ago, many chemical modifications were largely invisible to standard techniques in molecular biology. Technological innovations, in particular system-wide approaches coupled to next-generation sequencing, have fueled the recent excitement that created the newly minted field of “epitranscriptomics”. We now have the tools to incorporate the various domains of RNA research into a larger view of RNA maturation events. RMaP (RNA Modification and Processing) aims at a profound understanding of how modifications and processing together determine RNA maturation, and in turn control RNA effector functions and their regulatory impact on gene expression. The teams of RMaP have, individually as well as in cooperative work, made key contributions in both fields. As a consortium, RMaP now strives for an integrative understanding of the interplay between RNA modifications and the spectrum of processing events including nucleolytic cleavages, addition of untemplated nucleotides, and early degradation events. We posit that a coordinated research effort focusing on the interplay between RNA modifications, RNA processing and RNA effector functions will produce a formidable driving force to foster a mechanistic and functional understanding of epitranscriptomics, and to give important impulses to a holistic vision of RNA metabolism, maturation, and catabolism.
DFG Programme CRC/Transregios

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Co-Applicant Institution Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
 
 

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