CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) – Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine mapped more than 500,000 chimeric RNAs across more than 1,000 cancer cell lines. When the team switched off certain ones, the cancer cells stopped growing or died.
Chimeric RNA is a molecule built from parts of different genes. The name comes from the chimera, a monster the Greeks described with a lion’s head and a snake’s tail.
A ‘hidden layer’ once dismissed as junk
Dr. Hui Li, a professor of pathology at the UVA School of Medicine, said chimeric RNAs are “a hidden layer.” The layer was once dismissed as junk.
“It’s almost like a dark matter in the universe,” Dr. Li said…