New function in gene-regulatory protein discovered

Researchers at Umeå and Stockholm universities in Sweden and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the US have published a new study in the journal Molecular Cell. In the article, they show how the protein CBP affects the expression of genes through its interaction with the basal machinery that reads the instructions in our DNA. ^{Per Stenberg and PhD student Aman Zare. Photo: Eshagh Dorafshan} Our gene pool, our DNA that is, contains instructions for how the cell should assemble functional proteins. Before the DNA code can be translated into a string of amino acids that then fold into a functional protein, an intermediate RNA molecule needs to be produced. This RNA molecule is a copy of the DNA region, or gene, that contains the instructions for a specific protein. Various proteins are needed in different amounts in various cells, and much of the regulation of protein levels takes place by controlling how many RNA copies are produced from each gene.