Systems Biology of RNA Metabolism in Yeast
The RiboSys project used a systems biology approach to model pre-messenger RNA and pre-ribosomal RNA metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and aid understanding of these complex cellular pathways.
The project was funded for four years from January 2006 through a 2.4M Euro grant from the European Commission, Sixth Framework Programme: Life Sciences, Genomics and Biotechnology for Health.
Aims and Strategies
- quantify mRNA and rRNA precursors and directly determine rates for their transcription and processing or degradation through the various post-transcriptional pathways
- produce two comparable mathematical representations of the processing and degradation of pre-mRNAs and pre-rRNAs, and populate the parameters using quantitative experimental data.
- manipulate the model parameters and make predictions about the behaviour of the systems.
- test the predictions experimentally, using yeast mutants that block specific steps.
- use tiling microarrays to investigate antisense and intergenic transcripts, analyse correlations in their expression patterns, and the effects of mutations in transcription, splicing and RNA turnover factors on their transcription and stability.
- use refined imaging techniques to visualise individual transcripts to determine whether the population data reflect the situation in individual cells.
Further Information about RiboSys
Click here to download a summary written for non-specialists.
Click here to download a leaflet about the project and the participants.