Research reveals key differences between single- and double-stranded RNA, insights that may prove useful to fields from agriculture to medicine.

Less common in nature is double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), which has two strands and resembles the well-known DNA double helix. It’s found in some viruses, but for the past few decades, people have been developing synthetic dsRNA for a range of purposes.

Despite our growing familiarity with its potential applications, researchers knew little about a key feature of dsRNA, namely how dsRNA degrades — a particularly important question as one of its most promising applications is in agriculture as a type of pesticide.

Research from the lab of Kimberly Parker, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has upended common assumptions about the chemical stability of dsRNA that may prove useful to fields from agriculture to medicine. The lab’s findings even may have implications for our understanding of the origins of life. The results were published this summer in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

«Fundamentally, we are challenging a pervasive assumption that what we know about ssRNA behavior predicts dsRNA behavior,» Parker said.

«The general knowledge is that RNA is less stable than DNA,» Parker said. That’s because the RNA structure has a few extra atoms that causes the nucleic acid to degrade by itself to smaller pieces.

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Materials provided by Washington University in St. Louis. Original written by Brandie Jefferson. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.