Within cells, molecules known as transfer RNAs, or “tRNAs,” play an important but unglamorous workhorse role in keeping the genetic translation process moving along from codes of DNA to functional proteins.
Because they play such a vital role in this translational “housekeeping,” tRNAs are plentiful.
There are hundreds of tRNA genes in mammalian cells and more than enough backup copies, just in case anything goes wrong. Yet because there are so many tRNAs, they’ve been largely overlooked in the search for the roots of disease processes.
University of California San Diego scientists studying tRNAs in mice have now found that a mutation in a tRNA gene called n-Tr20—expressed only in the brain—can disrupt the landscape of the entire cell, leading to a chain reaction altering brain function and behavior.
