TINY slugs of RNA dismissed as insignificant until recently appear to play an important role in the development of human cancer.
The main task of RNA was thought to be carrying the information for making proteins. But much smaller pieces called microRNAs are emerging as key players in cells (New Scientist, 27 November 2004, p 36). Now three studies in Nature (vol 435, p 828, 834 and 839) provide the strongest evidence yet that microRNAs can trigger cancers when they go awry.
Gregory Hannon's team at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York state report finding a cluster of microRNAs that appear to trigger blood cancers in mice. In the second study, Todd Golub's team at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston has found that each type of human tumour has its own distinctive "fingerprint" of microRNAs, a finding that could lead to better diagnosis of cancers.
Also, cancerous ...