2023.03.11 DART VADAR harnesses the force of enzymes for better RNA drugs

Autocatalytic base editing for RNA-responsive translational control, Nature Communications The team designed their sensor around ADAR, an enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of a mismatched adenosine in a double-stranded RNA molecule into an inosine. The action of ADAR on their RNA-based sensor changes a stop codon into a sense codon, initiating the translation of downstream payload genes. The addition of a gene for ADAR itself creates a positive feedback loop that amplifies the sensor's action. Note: in the final version of the sensor, the ADAR gene was replaced with MCP-ADAR and MS2 hairpins were added flanking the stop codon sequence. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University