Genetic, biochemical, and structural studies have elucidated the molecular basis for spliceosome catalysis. Splicing is RNA catalyzed and the essential snRNA and protein factors are well-conserved. Ho...

Alternative splicing generates different mRNA isoforms from single genes, generating protein diversity essential for normal development and tissue function. Dysregulation of splicing is implicated in ...

Nature Chemical Biology - Engineered aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (aaRS) mutants have been developed that facilitate ultrafast bioorthogonal noncanonical amino acid tagging (BONCAT) of newly...

The spliceosome is a highly dynamic structure that undergoes continuous structural alterations through the sequential association and dissociation of small nuclear RNAs and protein factors during prec...

Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine—Basic Sciences

Defects in ribosomal machinery cause ribosomopathies such as Diamond Blackfan anemia, classically linked to impaired protein synthesis. However, emerging evidence places mitochondrial dysfunction as a...

In mammals, the enzyme TGDS produces UDP-4-keto-6-deoxyglucose, which binds to the catalytic pocket of UDP-xylose synthase, thereby regenerating the essential NAD+ cofactor of UDP-xylose synthase in conditions of low NAD+.

Repurposing the "protein-labeling toolkit" for RNA research could be a pragmatic approach for developing new RNA-labeling methods. We have evolved an RNA aptamer that tightly binds benzylguanine (bG),...

SNAPR is a ribozyme that repurposes O6-benzylguanine SNAP-tag substrates for site-specific labeling of RNA with bioorthogonal alkyne and azide functional groups, fluorophores or photocrosslinkers. Th...

Most introns contain GT-AG terminal dinucleotides; although some eukaryotes have introns with AT-AC termini whose splicing is impaired in the Arabidopsis defective repression of OLE3::LUC 1 (drol1) mu...

Federally funded basic research at the University of Utah laid the groundwork for a new HIV-prevention drug now approved for clinical use—demonstrating how curiosity-driven science delivers real-world...

CDK11 associates with SF3B1 and phosphorylates threonine residues at the N terminus of SF3B1 during spliceosome activation, and the inhibition of CDK11 blocks the activation and leads to widespread intron retention and the accumulation of non-functional spliceosomes on pre-mRNAs and chromatin.