Dr. Joshua Mendell CREDIT: UT Southwestern Medical Center
A gene called NORAD has been found to help maintain the proper number of chromosomes in cells, and that when inactivated, causes the number of chromosomes in a cell to become unstable, a key feature of cancer cells.
Previously, genes that encode the recipe for making proteins have been implicated in maintaining the proper number of chromosomes in a cell. The NORAD gene, however, does not encode a protein. Instead, NORAD produces a long noncoding RNA, a type of molecule that was not previously known to be important in chromosome maintenance.
Researchers began studying this particular molecule because the RNA kicks into action after DNA is damaged; they therefore termed it Noncoding RNA Activated by DNA Damage, or NORAD.
The scientist...
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