Interview with Simon Conn: STEMterview
December 12, 2021
Interview with Simon Conn: STEMterview
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Interview with Simon Conn: STEMterview
Dr. Zachary Ardern, Postdoctoral Fellow, at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK delivered an exciting talk on, ‘How can life evolve new genes?’. In his talk, he highlighted the importance of overlapping genes and short genes like ORFs (Open Reading Frames) in microbial genomes. He explained the so-called ORFan genes which are found only in a small group of species or in one genome. He also pointed out the overlapping genes present in the SARS-CoV-2 genome and discussed its strong selection and the dynamic evolution of novel overlapping genes which act as a factor in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
He briefly talked about different models of gene origins and tools like RNA profiling, comparative genomics, evolutionary sequence analysis, etc. He introduced a tool, ‘OLGenie’ which detects overlapping genes by analysing excess constraints. Looking at genotype-phenotype maps between single-stranded sequences and the fault in the structure is an important part of the whole region of de-novo origin. He focused on ORF3a overlapping genes in SARS-CoV-2 and on finding the correlation between different reading frames. He concluded his talk by supporting the highly dynamic behaviour of genomes over time and understanding how this happened is fundamental in biology.
The structural flexibility of RNA underlies fundamental biological processes, but there were no methods to explore the multiple conformations adopted by RNAs in vivo. We developed cross-linking of matched RNAs and deep sequencing (COMRADES) for in-depth RNA conformation capture, and a pipeline for the retrieval of RNA structural ensembles.
Using COMRADES, we determined the architecture of the Zika virus RNA genome inside cells and identified multiple site-specific interactions with human noncoding RNAs.
The zika virus genome is a single-stranded RNA molecule. Not much was known about its structure. A collaborative initiative between two Universities in the United Kingdom solved this riddle and developed a method to explore multiple conformations adopted by RNAs in vivo in virus-infected cells. Just like a person can fold their body into multiple yoga positions, the Zika virus genome can do similar. Watch this video to learn how!
What has a virus in common with a kinder surprise egg? Surprisingly, a lot! Watch this video to learn how scientists can look into viruses and study their insides. In this video, you will learn about virions, capsids, and genomes. You might also get hungry!
