Squid edit their genetic material in a uniquely weird place
Squid can edit their genetic information in a place scientists didn’t expect. Longfin inshore squid (Doryteuthis pealeii) are the first known animals that can tweak strings of RNA outside of a nerve cell’s nucleus. These genetic couriers, called messenger RNA, or mRNA, carry a cell’s blueprints for building proteins. All creatures make edits to RNA — including other types besides mRNA — and do so sparingly, based on limited studies in mammals and fruit flies. Those changes typically take place inside the nucleus and are then exported to the rest of the cell. The squids’ ability to make genetic edits in cytoplasm, the jellylike material that makes up much of a cell, may let the animals make adjustments to mRNAs on the fly. That skill could help squids produce proteins tailored to meet a cell’s needs and hone crucial cell processes, researchers report March 23 in Nucleic Acids Research. Knowing how the squids make the edits in nerve cells could help researchers hijack the technique to...