Jon Kwok and Zhi Yuan of the Arora Lab describe a programmable scaffold for recognition of double-stranded RNA. Double-stranded DNA can be sequence-specifically recognized by small molecule and protein-based ligands but efforts to specifically target dsRNA have met repeated failure. Jon and Zhi recognized that dsRNA is not accessible to dimeric DNA binding proteins because of the geometrical difference between the RNA and DNA major grooves. The team re-engineered DNA binding proteins to match the geometry required for RNA binding. This study is published in Angewandte Chemie.
Read the article here: https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202308650