Scientists from China have stumbled upon an enormous discovery in comprehending the makeup and mechanism of the spliceosome, agreeably the most complex macromolecular genetics machine.
Tsinghua University's Shi Yigong, the School of Life Sciences dean, released the findings after publishing two papers in the U.S. journal Science.
Using the most modern cryo-EM technology, Shi's lab was able to map the spliceosome's architecture at atomic resolution. Shi said that his breakthrough enchanced the resolution by nearly eight times.
"Mapping spliceosome has been extremely difficult because it is very dynamic, and exists in a series of distinct conformations, with different components," he said.
"We produced a high-resolution structure of the spliceosome and uncovered how the splicing process worked. This will help us understand the genetic process as well as genetic disorders, 35 percent of which are caused in the splicing process," Shi said.
"I have been dedicated to spliceosome research for the last six years," he added.
"The two recent Science papers from Shi's lab are a fantastic breakthrough [...] This is the last great unsolved mega-complex, and the wait has been very long wait indeed," said Jack Szostak, Harvard Medical School's Nobel laureate and professor of genetics.
"This is a wonderful new window into the working of this remarkably complex molecular machine [...] This work is important because it opens the door to further advances," said Szostak.
"Much, however, remains to be done [we] can anticipate additional structures of the spliceosome at different stages along the splicing pathway, as well as the possibility of structures at an even higher resolution," he added.