Thursday, January 05, 2012
RNA Editing involved in phenotypic plasticity of Polar Octopuses
"To operate in the extreme cold, ion channels from psychrophiles must have evolved structural changes to compensate for their thermal environment. A reasonable assumption would be that the underlying adaptations lie within the encoding genes. Here, we show that [relevant genes are] extensively edited in both Antarctic and Arctic species, but mostly unedited in tropical species. Thus, A-to-I RNA editing can respond to the physical environment." Full article @ Science