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2

Magic RNA

Abstract

About half of the human genome is actively transcribed as RNA, new regulatory and non-

protein-coding RNA types such as miRNAs and lncRNAs in higher cells and the CRISPR/

Cas9 system from bacteria underline the importance of RNA for molecular biology.

Typically, one analyzes RNA sequence, structure, and folding energy orientationally first

using RNAAnalyzer software, Rfam database, and RNAfold server. GEO and GeneVestigator

databases show gene expression differences that can be analyzed in more depth using

R and Bioconductor as scripting language and program framework. Both are important

tools, but they have to be learned like a language in order to be able to write instructions

for biostatistical analysis (so-called “scripts”). Non-coding RNA is also important for

diseases, and bioinformatics helps to uncover this, e.g. chast-­lncRNA in heart failure.

2.1

RNA Sequences Are Biologically Active

What does magic mean? It means that words are immediately translated into action! For

example, you mutter an incantation of the air spirit, and the medicine man uses it to set the

air in motion. In everyday life, you can’t do that, or only if you have a lot of money. Then

with this “wishing machine”, the money, one can also put every purchasable wish into action.

So in our everyday world, the thought (easy) and the deed (sweaty, grueling, tiring) are

well separated. But in the molecular world this is not so, in particular RNA has even magi­

cal properties in this sense.

We can form single words especially with RNA building blocks (“nucleotides”), but at

the same time this chain of RNA building blocks then already has active properties, can

accelerate biochemical reactions or even make them possible in the first place  - in a

word: magic!

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023

T. Dandekar, M. Kunz, Bioinformatics,

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-65036-3_2