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Updated: Jun 6, 2026
13:04
Overexpressing Long Noncoding RNAs Using Gene-activating CRISPR
Published on: March 1, 2019
ENSURE: the encyclopedia of suppressor tRNA with an AI assistant
Zhuo Ouyang1, Yifeng Zhang1, Fan Feng1
1MOE Key Laboratory of Gene Function and Regulation, State Key Laboratory for Biocontrol, Innovation Center for Evolutionary Synthetic Biology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Biology, School of Agriculture and Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
Nucleic Acids Research
|October 29, 2025
Summary
Suppressor transfer RNAs (sup-tRNAs) enable readthrough of premature stop codons to rescue truncated proteins. The new ENSURE platform integrates sup-tRNA data, structural models, and an AI assistant to accelerate research and therapeutic development.
Area of Science:
- Molecular Biology
- Genetics
- Bioinformatics
Background:
- Suppressor transfer RNAs (sup-tRNAs) are crucial for rescuing proteins with premature termination codons through translational readthrough.
- Advances in genetic code expansion and RNA therapeutics have spurred sup-tRNA engineering, yet a unified data platform is lacking.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce ENSURE, a comprehensive knowledge base designed to integrate diverse sup-tRNA-related data.
- To facilitate sup-tRNA research and translational applications by providing a centralized resource with advanced analytical tools.
Main Methods:
- Aggregation of 2152 disease-associated variants, 86 natural sup-tRNAs, 1108 tRNA engineering strategies, and 487 tRNA element records.
- Application of multiple sequence alignment, secondary structure prediction, and AlphaFold 3 modeling with interactive visualization.
- Development of an AI assistant using retrieval-augmented generation for enhanced data querying and answer generation.
Main Results:
- ENSURE provides a curated database of sup-tRNA information, including variants, natural sup-tRNAs, engineering strategies, and tRNA elements.
- Integrated structural modeling and visualization tools offer deep insights into tRNA structures and functions.
- The AI assistant effectively processes queries, retrieves relevant information, and generates informative answers with integrated resources.
Conclusions:
- ENSURE serves as a powerful, integrative platform for sup-tRNA research.
- The platform's comprehensive data, structural modeling, and AI capabilities are expected to accelerate the development of sup-tRNA-based therapeutics.
- ENSURE addresses the need for a dedicated resource to advance the field of translational readthrough and RNA therapeutics.
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