With the advent of next-generation sequencing technologies, the genomic sequences for an ever-expanding number of organisms have been decoded, providing immense databases of protein amino acid sequences and DNA and RNA nucleotide sequences. These databases are allowing comparisons across thousands of species, enabling the identification of those that have undergone significant molecular evolution in specific proteins or RNA molecules.

In the 21st century, RNA biology has gained major attention with the discovery of functional non-coding RNAs and regulatory systems including CRISPR. These advances have clarified with high resolution the evolutionary transitions of RNA-related enzymes and RNA-binding proteins, which govern the flow of genetic information.

This book provides an in-depth overview on the molecular evolution of RNA-related enzymes, RNA-binding proteins, and RNA regulatory systems. The focus is not only on newly-identified RNA regulatory factors or systems that have garnered attention since the beginning of the 21st century, but it also elucidates RNA-related molecules with fundamental and significant roles in cellular genetic regulation, or the regulatory systems themselves. Specifically, the volume revisits molecules involved in transcription (RNA polymerase), pre-mRNA processing and degradation (ribonucleases such as RNase E, RNase III, and self-cleaving ribozymes), and in translation (ribosomal proteins and translation factors), regardless of their novelty. This volume thus is intended to serve as an essential resource for furthering the systematic understanding of cellular genetic regulation from a molecular evolutionary standpoint.

Autorentext

Akio Kanai was born in Tokyo, Japan. He graduated from Waseda University in 1985 and obtained his PhD in molecular biology at the University of Tokyo in 1990. He finished postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health, USA (1990-1992), and he was appointed a researcher in the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science (1992-1996). He was a group leader for the Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST), ERATO Project Group (1996-2001). He was an Associate Professor at the Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Keio University (2001-2006) and accepted a full professorship in April 2006 (concurrently serves as a professor at the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University). Since 2022, he is also a professor of Systems Biology Program, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University. His major research fields include molecular cellular biology and gene regulation in a variety of organisms. His work in life sciences has led him to his present research into RNA-binding proteins and non-coding RNAs.

Allen Nicholson is a Professor of Biology in the College of Science and Technology at Temple University. Prior to this appointment Dr. Nicholson was on the Biology faculty at Wayne State University, from 1985-2002. Dr. Nicholson received his bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Cornell University in 1975 and his doctoral degree in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981. He was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University (1981-1985) where he developed his interests in RNA function in gene regulation. Although trained as a chemist, Dr. Nicholson established a distinguished career in molecular biology, and his research, which has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, has focused on understanding how genes are expressed and regulated at the post-transcriptional level. Specifically, Dr. Nicholson and his group are studying ribonucleases -- proteins whose role is to recognize and cut RNA molecules, and which exert profound effects on gene expression that controls cell growth and development. A specific ribonuclease under study, ribonuclease III, is a central participant in post-transcriptional gene expression and regulation in bacteria and has family members in eukaryotic systems with essential functions in gene expression and regulation.