Separating signal from noise: How cells decide the fate of RNA

An international team of scientists including the lab of Clemens Plaschka at the IMP and Julius Brennecke at IMBA have discovered a fundamental mechanism that helps cells decide which RNA molecules are kept and used—and which are destroyed. Published in the journal Nature, the study reveals that RNA export and RNA decay are not separate processes, as previously thought, but two competing pathways that read the same molecular signal. The findings provide a new framework for understanding how cells maintain gene-expression fidelity.