Project description:Given the interest in the COVID mRNA vaccines, we sought to investigate how the RNA modification N1-methylpseudouridine (and its related modification, pseudouridine) is read by ribosomes and reverse transcriptases. By looking at reverse transcriptase data, we can gain information on how the modification affects duplex stability, which may have important consequences for the tRNA-mRNA interactions found in the ribosome.
Project description:The COVID mRNA vaccines utilize the modified nucleobase N1-methylpseudouridine, in place of canonical uridine, to improve immunogenicity and protein yield. However, relatively few studies have investigated the effect of modified nucleobases on the fidelity of protein translation. Given the interest in the COVID mRNA vaccines, we sought to investigate how N1-methylpseudouridine (and the related modification pseudouridine) is read by ribosomes.