WKU News

WKU biology professor and University Distinguished Professor, Dr. Rodney King, coauthored a study published in Nature Communications, a fully open access journal that is part of the Nature portfolio.

As described on their website, Nature Communications is a “multidisciplinary journal dedicated to publishing high-quality research in all areas of the biological, health, physical, chemical and Earth sciences. Papers published by the journal aim to represent important advances of significance to specialists within each field”.

The article entitled, “Structural basis of transcriptional regulation by a nascent RNA element, HK022 putRNA” describes the structural analysis of a bacteriophage-encoded regulatory RNA molecule. The structure, determined by cryo-electron microscopy, provides important molecular detail of how the RNA molecule modulates viral gene expression.

Dr. King’s work on this unusual RNA molecule began during his time as a National Research Council Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The new work corroborates previous genetic and biochemical studies and revealed unexpected structural complexity in the RNA.

The study is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Robert Weisberg, Dr. King’s post-doctoral mentor at the NIH.  Dr. Weisberg’s untimely passing deprived him of the satisfaction of seeing the work started in his lab come to fruition. The complete manuscript can be viewed at:  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32315-y.

For more information contact Dr. Rodney King (270) 745-6910, rodney.king@wku.edu