ttached to the spliceosomal proteins so that the proteins could be viewed with the laser microscope.
"Genomic DNA is sort of like a zip file in that there's a lot of information occupying a very small space," explains Hoskins. "Splicing allows you to decompress the genetic information so the cell can read it before a particular protein is made."
There are certain regions that code for proteins, called exons, and regions that do not code for proteins, called introns. The regions that do not code for proteins often interrupt the regions that do, therefore they need to be removedand the remaining pieces must be spliced togetherto create appropriate proteins.
Friedman has spent more than five years developing specialized light microscopes to watch single protein molecules, while Hoskins has been developing the methodology to study these proteins in the complex environments necessary for spliceosome function.
To view the spliceosome in action -- how it assembles to actually do the splicingthe single yeast components are tagged with florescent dyes then the sample is placed into the microscope. The lasers act as a light source that causes individual tagged molecules to light up so one can actually watch, in unprecedented detail, the splicing process through its various stages.
"If we have one component of the spliceosome that has a green dye on it and one that has a red dye on it, then we see a green spot and a red spot coming together on the RNA, we know that we are studying part of that assembly process," says Gelles. "By looking at individual molecules one at a time we can actually follow the stages of the assembly process. We can determine whether it happens in the same order on each molecule, or if some spliceosomes assemble differently than others."
Friedman says that there are easily a hundred or so components that comprise the microscope that he designed and built with his colleagues. There are so many parts, in fact, that
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| Contact: Susan Chaityn Lebovits lebovits@brandeis.edu 781-736-4027 Brandeis University Source:Eurekalert |
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