Uracil in the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu. Nature Communications, 2023; 14 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-36904-3 ...

In Biology 101, we learn that RNA is a single, ribbon-like strand of base pairs that is copied from our DNA and then read like a recipe to build a protein. But there's more to the story. Some RNA ...

Organic molecules, including uracil and niacin, have been detected in samples collected by Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu. Uracil is a component of RNA while niacin ...

Uracil vs. Thymine Uracil is often compared to thymine (T), which is the nucleobase that takes its place in DNA. Both uracil and thymine pair with adenine, but they differ in their chemical structure.

RNA is also made of a long string of bases: guanine, cytosine and adenine (like DNA), but instead of thymine it has uracil — which is what turned up in the sample from Ryugu.

But Yale researchers have now developed a method to map and measure the structure of RNA as it develops, an advance that may help scientists design more effective treatments for a host of diseases.

Uracil is a nucleobase, one of four (along with adenine, guanine and cytosine) that make up ribonucleic acid, or RNA, which is used by cells to communicate genetic information.

Scientists now report the discovery of niacin (also known as Vitamin B3) as well as uracil: one of the four nucleotide bases that are found in RNA, a molecule used by all living organisms to function.

Those bases are often referred to by the first letters of their names: A, C, G and U, for adenine, cytosine, guanine and uracil (RNA’s version of the DNA base thymine).

A 2-gram chunk from this rock — a piece of the meteorite that fell near Murchison, Australia, in 1969 — contains two crucial components of DNA and RNA now identified for the first time in an ...