Feeling hot, hot, hot!
Welcome to 2007, everyone! To get things started with a bang, we at Nature Chemical Biology put together a focus issue on RNA, the biomolecule with the most Golden Globe and Emmy nominations... oops, I mean Nobel Prizes... for 2006. It will definitely be helpful for me, as one of my new year's resolutions is to figure out what all the new varieties of RNA are.
On a related RNAi note, I've been wondering if the International Federation of Competitive Eating will start doing random drug tests to see if people are knocking down their levels of TRP channels, the receptors that sense capsaicin. After all, if people can't sense that peppers are hot, that's a pretty big advantage in eating a bunch of them at once! Fortunately, this problem would only apply to a small subset of eating contests, as I don't think there's any way to genetically regulate how many hot dog buns you can stuff down your throat. I'll keep you posted if I see any new regulations arise...
Best wishes for the new year!
Catherine (associate editor, Nature Chemical Biology)
Comments
CP-96,345 (5-10 mg/kg) or capsazepine (10-50 mg/kg) for Substance P antagonism. Capsaicin has extremely poor GI absorption. Antagonizing oral Substance P receptors is only half the story.
Posted by: Uncle Al | January 7, 2007 08:11 PM
Good luck with your resolution. Our cells are becoming an acronym soup of small RNAs and by the time you understand all the varieties we know about now others will have been found. E.g. RNAa late last year.
Posted by: chiz | January 8, 2007 01:26 AM