The RNA world is alive and well

Abstract

We believe that this special issue of Trends in Plant Science offers an insightful and wide-ranging set of reviews on one of the hottest areas of plant sciences: the interplay between RNA, cellular function, and the genome. Outside of the classically defined (in molecular terms) roles of RNA, few functions had been ascribed to RNA until the last decade of the 20th century. Building on earlier hypotheses and hints of an ancient RNA world, more recent data have shown that the RNA world is alive and well, and had been either underappreciated or poorly described.