Word: rna
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...have on its surface as many as 10,000 points of contact (synaptic knobs) with other neurons (see chart). But by means of exquisitely delicate instrumentation and an electron microscope, Dr. Hydén has discovered that when human neurons are stimulated, some of the millions of ribonucleicacid (RNA) molecules inside them give orders to the glial cells to manufacture new proteins. The nature and pattern of these proteins contain an imprint of something that has been perceived, and may become a part of a memory...
When the researchers injected Hel-RNA into mice and then gave the animals a second injection of a normally fatal dose of an encephalitis virus, 73% of the animals survived, as against only 3% of unprotected mice. The score was still better when the RNA preparation was put into the animals' noses and they were exposed to a pneumonia virus: 90% survived, whereas every one of the unprotected comparison group of mice died...
Promising Prospects. The Merck virologists tried other kinds of nucleic acid: single-stranded RNA, doublestranded deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and substances containing proteins. None worked. Then they took two groups of nucleic acid components. Alone, neither of these had worked, but when they were combined in what turned out to be a multi-stranded RNA, the protective effect for infected mice was about the same as that conferred by HeL-RNA...
Finally, the researchers took reovirus-3, a common cause of respiratory and intestinal infections in man and remark able because its RNA core is normally double-stranded. Unlike the whole vi rus, the purified RNA extracted from it did not cause infections, but it stimulated interferon production within an hour in cells grown in the test tube. The process usually requires five hours with the whole virus...
...species is of little or no use in another, so there was no chance of "growing" it in animals for later use in man. But now it seems virtu ally certain that man can be stimulated to produce it by a periodic intake of a harmless form of RNA, either injected or even more convenient, by means of an inhaler. Though the maximum effect may last only two or three weeks, that would be long enough to protect other members of a family when one of them starts spreading cold germs around the house. And interferon might be still more...