arrp@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (arrp) (10/13/89)
The prize was awarded to Sidney Altman of Yale University and Thomas Cech of the University of Colorado at Boulder for their work in the discovery of catalytic properties of RNA. An article published in Friday's edition of the Toronto Globe and Mail said, 'It changed dogmas from the turn of the century on how living cells function.' Quoted by Bertil Andersson of the Nobel committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. What were those dogmas? What are the major references to this work and its implications? Thank you. -- Richard Clark
pell@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Anthony Pelletier) (10/14/89)
In article <1989Oct13.150726.17983@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> arrp@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (arrp) writes: >The prize was awarded to Sidney Altman of Yale University and >Thomas Cech of the University of Colorado at Boulder for their >work in the discovery of catalytic properties of RNA. > >An article published in Friday's edition of the Toronto Globe >and Mail said, 'It changed dogmas from the turn of the century >on how living cells function.' Quoted by Bertil Andersson of the >Nobel committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. > >What were those dogmas? > >What are the major references to this work and its implications? > >Thank you. > >-- >Richard Clark What a co-incidence! I just returned from the party honoring Tom here and had too much wine to do benchwork, so I decided to read mail. References: Cech T.R., A. Zaug and P.J. Grabowski (1981) Cell 27:487 ibid (1982) Cell 31:147 Zaug and Cech (1986) Science 231:470 There is is also a review in Anual Rev. Biochem. In 1986 on biocatalyts. What Tom and his co-workers found was that an RNA splicing reaction (specifically, the rRNA of Tetrahymena) was self-splicing. That is, it carried out a fairly complex bilogical reaction without any proteins present. The InterVening Sequence (IVS) was found to catalyze the reaction and was dubbed a "ribozyme." Most notably in Tom's case is that he took a position that was absolute heresy (the dogma was "PROTEINS carry out biological reactions, NOT those puny nucleic acids") and yet, the comments one heard about him in the scientific community went from "That guy's been up in the thin air too long" to "that guy's a shoe-in for a Nobel prize in a few years" in a matter of months. The result fell in his lap--but he flooded the field with proof after proof so that all objections died out before any "controversy" could get going. he did everything right (unlike the people in cold fusion). Implications? Well, there was this dilema: Proteins carry out biological reactions, nucleic acid stores information (on how to make proteins, among other things). If you need nucleic acids to make proteins and you need proteins to carry out reactions (such as replicate nucleic acids), how'd it get going? The answer appears to be that you don't need proteins to do biological reactions, so RNA can do it alone. Proteins are later additions. (I'm sure someone at Yale will fill you in on how Sid Altman helped instigate this) Of the prizes this year I am alot more surprized by Harold & Mike's than the Altman/Cech prize. This was really ground-shaking stuff. -tony