SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering Dean André Melendez published collaborative research focusing on how arsenic toxicity is regulated in the body.

The findings resulted from a partnership with researchers from MIT and the RNA Institute at the University at Albany, and are highlighted in the article, “Arsenite toxicity is regulated by queuine availability and oxidation-induced reprogramming of the human tRNA epitranscriptome,” published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers found that, “First, among a battery of oxidizing and alkylating agents, arsenite exposure caused a unique reprogramming of wobble queuosine in the transfer RNA (tRNA) epitranscriptome, which depended upon the micronutrient precursor queuine and was linked to codon-biased shifts in the translation of metabolic proteins known to be linked to arsenite toxicity. Second, we showed that the tRNA epitranscriptome is dynamically and differentially regulated by exposure to a variety of toxicants. Finally, the results have implications for the role of queuine as a micronutrient that determines the human cell response to toxic stresses.”

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