Small RNAs are characterized by a length of approximately 21 to 24 nucleotides. The biological activity of small RNAs was first described about 12 years ago, but the most substantial advances in this field have only been made in the last six or seven years.
To assist other small RNA researchers, the UD team has created a user-friendly web site [http://mpss.udel.edu/at] available to scientists to examine any gene or region of an Arabidopsis chromosome for matches to small RNAs.
Science is a prestigious journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The paper's first and second authors are Cheng Lu, a molecular biology postdoctoral researcher, and Shivakundan Singh Tej, a computer science student. Also among the authors, in addition to Green and Meyers, are Shujun Luo and Christian D. Haudenschild of Solexa.
"By working closely together, and with industrial collaborators," Green said, "the students and postdocs crossed the boundaries of their conventional training. This emulates the goals of UD and DBI for interdisciplinary research, education and economic development."
In addition to funding by NSF, the laboratories have received grants from DBI and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to continue their work on small RNA analysis.
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Contact: Neil Thomas
nfttwo@udel.edu
University of Delaware
1-Sep-2005