Engineering regulatory RNAs

RNA has long been a favoured medium for in vitro evolution and engineering. Functional RNAs produced in vitro can bind small molecules (aptamers), possess catalytic activity (ribozymes) or do both (aptazymes). A plethora of recent work has shown similar strategies used naturally for gene regulation in bacteria. Interest in these natural systems has inspired an effort to engineer and evolve this activity in vivo. A recent paper by Isaacs et al. describes the engineering and in vivo activity of a small RNA that removes translation inhibition by binding the 5' untranslated region of its target mRNA and making the ribosome-binding site accessible.