Biologists have long wondered if mammals share the elegant system used by insects, bacteria and other invertebrates to defend against viral infection. Two back-to-back studies in the journal Science last year said the answer is yes, but a study just published in Cell Reports by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai found the opposite.
In the Mount Sinai study, the results found that the defense system used by invertebrates—RNA interferences or RNAi—is not used by mammals as some had argued. RNAi are small molecules that attach to molecular scissors used by invertebrates to cut up invading viruses.
Mammals use a form of RNAi to fine-tune the expression of hundreds of genes that coordinate development in the womb, says the study’s senior author, Benjamin tenOever, PhD, Fishberg Professor in the Department of Medicine and Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. But it has never been clear that adult mammals use RNAi the same way that plants and insects do, he says. “Mammals have cell machinery that looks capable of producing RNAi to fight virus, but we believe it only helps to produce different small RNA products called microRNAs, which are not antiviral,” Dr. tenOever says.
In the Mount Sinai study, the results found that the defense system used by invertebrates—RNA interferences or RNAi—is not used by mammals as some had argued. RNAi are small molecules that attach to molecular scissors used by invertebrates to cut up invading viruses.
Mammals use a form of RNAi to fine-tune the expression of hundreds of genes that coordinate development in the womb, says the study’s senior author, Benjamin tenOever, PhD, Fishberg Professor in the Department of Medicine and Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. But it has never been clear that adult mammals use RNAi the same way that plants and insects do, he says. “Mammals have cell machinery that looks capable of producing RNAi to fight virus, but we believe it only helps to produce different small RNA products called microRNAs, which are not antiviral,” Dr. tenOever says.
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