Understanding thermal sensitivity at the molecular level and developing temperature-based systems using RNA Thermometers


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Gul F., Orhan I. Y., Ceylan F. S., Akdeniz N. B., Karadag H. A.

CLINICAL AND INVESTIGATIVE MEDICINE, vol.39, no.6, 2016 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier identifier

Abstract

Purpose: Temperature sensitivity is found in all multicelleular organisms, as well as in most primitive life forms. The ubiquity of this temperature sensitivity is an indicator of its effects at the multicellular, cellular and molecular levels [1]. Previous studies have shown that temperature-based regulation is present in the transcriptional process [2]. RNA Thermometers, temperature-sensitive sequences, have been shown to act on heat-shock genes to regulate temperature-dependant systems in many organisms [3,4]. The goal of this study was to characterize the shifts in the functioning of these RNA Thermometers at various temperatures. In addition, using the principle of transcriptional thermoregulation, an automated temperature-responsive system stimulating inverse endothermic and exothermic enzymatic reactions for heat stabilization was proposed.