鱿鱼能以前所未有的方式编辑它们的RNA

科学家发现，鱿鱼能以前所未有的方式编辑它们的RNA

When it comes to squids, you just can't keep them down.

当谈到鱿鱼时，你就是无法控制它们。

Not just because they're slippery, but also because they have an incredible genetic editing ability - it lets them tweak their own RNA long after it's left the nucleus.

不仅因为它们很滑，还因为它们有一种令人难以置信的基因编辑能力——这让它们能够在RNA离开细胞核很长时间后对其进行调整。

Here's what that means. Genes, in humans at least, mostly stay unchanging until they're recombined and passed onto the next generation.

这是什么意思呢?基因，至少在人类身上，在重组并传递给下一代之前，基本上保持不变。

This is the same for our messenger RNA (mRNA). Helpful molecules read our DNA, create short little RNA messages, and send them outside the nucleus to tell the rest of the cell which proteins need to be built.

我们的信使RNA (mRNA)也是如此。有用的分子读取我们的DNA，生成简短的RNA信息，然后将它们发送到细胞核外，告诉细胞的其他部分哪些蛋白质需要合成。

Once that mRNA has exited the nucleus, it's thought the genetic information it carries can't be messed with much - but new research has shown that in squid nerves, this isn't the case.

一旦信使rna离开细胞核，它所携带的遗传信息就不会被扰乱了——但新的研究表明，在鱿鱼神经中，情况并非如此。

"We are showing that squid can modify the RNAs out in the periphery of the cell," says Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole geneticist Joshua Rosenthal.

伍兹霍尔遗传学家乔舒亚·罗森塔尔(Joshua Rosenthal)海洋生物实验室(MBL)说：“我们正在证明，鱿鱼可以改变细胞外围的RNA。”

"It works by this massive tweaking of its nervous system," Rosenthal told Wired. "Which is a really novel way of going through life."

罗森塔尔告诉《连线》杂志：“它的工作原理是对神经系统进行大规模的调整。这是一种非常新颖的生活方式。”

The team took nerves from specimens of adult male longfin inshore squid (Doryteuthis pealeii), and analysed the protein expression, as well as the squids' transcriptome, which is similar to a genome, but for mRNA.

研究小组从成年雄性长鳍近海鱿鱼(Doryteuthis pealei)的标本中提取神经，并分析了蛋白质的表达，以及鱿鱼的转录组，该转录组类似于一个基因组，但有mRNA。

They found that in squid nerves (or neurons), the mRNA was being edited outside of the nucleus, in a part of the cell called the axon.

他们发现，在鱿鱼神经(或神经元)中，mRNA在细胞核外的轴突细胞中被编辑。

This mRNA editing allows the squids to finely tune the proteins they produce at local sites (see diagram below). With this finding, squids have become the only creatures we know of that can do this.

这种mRNA编辑允许鱿鱼微调它们在局部产生的蛋白质(见下图)。有了这个发现，鱿鱼已经成为我们所知的唯一能做到这一点的生物。

This isn't the first time squids have shown off their genetic editing prowess, though. Back in 2015, a similar team at MBL discovered that squids edit their mRNA inside their nucleus to an incredibly large degree – orders of magnitude more than what happens in humans.

不过，这并不是鱿鱼第一次展示它们的基因编辑能力。早在2015年，MBL的一个类似团队就发现，鱿鱼在细胞核内的mRNA编辑程度之大令人难以置信——比人类的编辑程度高几个数量级。

The research has been published in Nucleic Acids Research.

这项研究已发表在《核酸研究》杂志上。