www.landesbioscience.com RNA Biology 167 NEWS LANdES HigHLigHtS

RNA editing is a molecular process through which some cells can make discrete changes to specific nucleotide sequences during tran-scription. the enzyme adenosine deaminase acting on RNA (AdAR) binds to specific double-stranded pre-mRNA structures and deaminates particular adenosine (A) nucleotides to inosines (i). inosines are then read as guanosines by the translation machinery. in some cases such a single-base change may lead to an alteration of RNA stability, or an aminoacid change that can have consequences such as the creation of an alternative splice site or a change in pro-tein function. RNA editing events have been reported for various protein types, including voltage-gated and ligand-gated ion channels. in a recent study, dr Richard Horn and co-workers showed that RNA editing at four sites in eag, a Drosophila voltage-gated potassium channel, results in the substitution of amino acids into the final protein product that are not encoded by the genome. in particular, editing resulted in the following changes: K467R (site RNA editing helps to fine-tune potassium channe