Our lab explores the biology of cephalopod RNA recoding and its role in generating plasticity to changing environments. RNA recoding occurs when ADAR enzymes edit mRNA transcripts, introducing non-synonymous codon changes that “rewrite” the amino acid sequence originally encoded by DNA. While RNA editing occurs across animals, RNA recoding is relatively rare. However, soft-bodied cephalopods—squid, octopus, and cuttlefish—use it on an extraordinary scale, recoding nearly 60% of their protein-coding transcripts. Recoding can dramatically alter protein function, is tissue specific, and is responsive to environmental cues, suggesting that recoding is a flexible mechanism that enables context-dependent functions. Our lab seeks to understand how recoding shapes protein function, how it is regulated in different cellular and environmental contexts, and the evolutionary implications of large-scale recoding.
We are sequencing and analyzing "editomes" from diverse species and conditions to characterize how recoding reshapes transcriptomes and proteomes in different contexts.
Recoding provides a natural guide to protein residues and processes potentially important for plasticity and adaptation. We study how it modifies conserved protein machinery to gain insights into protein structure–function and the mechanisms that drive organismal plasticity.
What governs the specificity and regulation of RNA recoding? We are dissecting the molecular mechanisms and interactions that regulate cephalopod ADAR function