Epitranscriptomics

This book reviews a novel and exciting field of cellular and molecular biology called epitranscriptomics, which focuses on changes in an organism’s cells resulting from the posttranscriptional modification of cellular RNA. RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) play a crucial role in these posttranscriptional modifications and also support several cellular processes necessary for maintaining RNA homeostasis. Exploring the mechanisms underlying RNA modifications and RBP function is an emerging area of biomedical research, taking the study of gene regulation a step beyond epigenetics.

This book reveals that the RNA molecule is not just an information-carrying molecule with some secondary structures. Accordingly, how RNA is modified, regulated, packaged, and controlled is an important aspect. Leading experts address questions such as where the over 170 distinct posttranscriptional RNA modifications are located on the genome, what percentage of mRNAs and noncoding RNAs these modifications include, and how an RNA modification impacts a person’s biology. In closing, the book reviews the role of RNA modifications and RBPs in a variety of diseases and their pathogenesis.

Addressing some of the most exciting challenges in epitranscriptomics, this book provides a valuable and engaging resource for researchers in academia and industry studying the phenomena of RNA modification.

Professor Stefan Jurga conducts interdisciplinary scientific research in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology, covering the physical, chemical, biological and medical sciences. He has authored over 270 publications in the interdisciplinary database Journal Citation Reports. He has served as a Visiting Professor at e.g. Cornell University, North Carolina State University, and the University of South Africa in Pretoria. Professor Jurga was a laureate of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and a scholarship holder at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz (Germany). He has also worked at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, at the Józef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, and at many other international scientific institutions.

Professor Jurga has served as Vice-Rector and Rector of the Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań (AMU), and also created the interdisciplinary NanoBioMedical Center at the AMU, which he has been the director of since 2010. From2005 to 2007 he was appointed as the Under Secretary and Secretary of State for research and higher education at the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Jan Barciszewski is a Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) in Poznań, Poland and at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań, Poland where he has worked since 1974. He studied organic chemistry at the AMU. During his PhD studies he worked on the structure and function of modified bases and nucleoside sequences of plant phenylalanine specific transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA), including cytokinins. He was subsequently granted a Doctor of Science degree for his work on the properties of plant tRNAs and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. In the 1990s he began working on the diagnosis and therapy of brain tumors. He developed a new method for the transformation of plant mitochondria based on catalytic RNAs, and is currently involved in studies on a new type of catalytic RNAs (enantiomeric ribozymes) for efficient RNA target cleavage in vivo, as well as the search for new anti-aging agents.