▲ | fabian2k 17 hours ago | |||||||
RNA structures are really more of a basic research thing. Having better tools there would be useful to understand these parts better. That's not irrelevant, but it doesn't lead directly to therapeutic applications. RNAs so far have been very bad drug targets. That is to a large part inherent in their properties, they have fewer different components (4 bases compared to 20 amino acids) and the RNA backbone is strongly charged and interactions with something like that are generally unspecific. Odds are that RNA will remain a bad drug target for almost all cases. | ||||||||
▲ | DrAwdeOccarim 15 hours ago | parent [-] | |||||||
I don’t disagree with your point, but I just would like to point out that there are over 100 known post-transcriptional modified RNA bases [1]. In fact, tRNA are more modified bases than canonical if taken as a whole. AND! the ribosome can’t function without all of its modifications. If I were to put money toward “targeting an RNA to make a drug” rRNA is where I’d aim… Source: PhD in RNA modifications | ||||||||
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