[EN] Eggplant latent viroid (ELVd), like other members of family Avsunviroidae, replicates in plastids through a symmetric rolling-circle mechanism in which elongation of RNA strands is most likely catalyzed by a nuclear-encoded ...
[EN] Viroids, due to their small size and lack of protein-coding capacity, must rely essentially on their hosts for replication. Intriguingly, viroids have evolved the ability to replicate in two cellular organella, the ...
[EN] The discovery of viroids about 45 years ago heralded a revolution in Biology: small RNAs comprising around 350 nt were found to be able to replicate autonomously and to incite diseases in certain plants without encoding ...
[EN] As a consequence of two unique physical properties, small size and circularity, viroid RNAs do not code for proteins and thus depend on RNA sequence/structural motifs for interacting with host proteins that mediate ...
FLORES PEDAUYE, RICARDO; Gago Zachert, Selma Persida; SERRA ALFONSO, PEDRO; Sanjuan Verdeguer, Rafael; ELENA FITO, SANTIAGO FCO(Annual Reviews, 2014)
[EN] Because RNA can be a carrier of genetic information and a biocatalyst, there
is a consensus that it emerged before DNA and proteins, which eventually
assumed these roles and relegated RNA to intermediate functions. ...