Overweight & Obesity

New cells could be key to treating obesity

Understanding how fat tissue forms and functions is crucial for addressing obesity and related metabolic diseases. However, adipose tissue, or body fat, behaves differently based on its location in the body.

Genetics

Researchers may have found an Achilles heel for Hepatitis B

Tiny, dangerous, and easily transmitted hepatitis B virus (HBV) chronically affects about 296 million people and kills about 1 million every year. This stealthy virus invades the liver and remains largely asymptomatic until ...

RNA

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a biologically important type of molecule that consists of a long chain of nucleotide units. Each nucleotide consists of a nitrogenous base, a ribose sugar, and a phosphate. RNA is very similar to DNA, but differs in a few important structural details: in the cell, RNA is usually single-stranded, while DNA is usually double-stranded; RNA nucleotides contain ribose while DNA contains deoxyribose (a type of ribose that lacks one oxygen atom); and RNA has the base uracil rather than thymine that is present in DNA.

RNA is transcribed from DNA by enzymes called RNA polymerases and is generally further processed by other enzymes. RNA is central to the synthesis of proteins. Here, a type of RNA called messenger RNA carries information from DNA to structures called ribosomes. These ribosomes are made from proteins and ribosomal RNAs, which come together to form a molecular machine that can read messenger RNAs and translate the information they carry into proteins. There are many RNAs with other roles – in particular regulating which genes are expressed, but also as the genomes of most viruses.

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