RNA capping: biological functions?
Published:
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023 is awarded to the work on mRNA vaccine, which replaces uridine with pseudo-uridine in mRNA sequence, and it shows much milder immunue responses.
Recently, there are several crucial papers showing the roles RNA cappings play to mediate immune responses.
RIG-I recoginizes metabolite caps instead of m7G cap
Bacteriophage hijacks bacteria with NAD-RNA
Coronavirus has 3 RNA methyl-transferases to modify its RNA cap and evade immune degradation
review
Nsp14: M7-MTase;
nsp16&nsp10: 2’-O-MTase;
nsp13: Helicase/TPase/MTase