RiboSNitch are Single Nucleotide Variant (SNV), found in the UTRs of mRNA transcripts as well as in ncRNAs, that alters the secondary structure of an RNA transcript.79 They are analogous to bacterial riboswitches – RNA elements that adopt a different conformation after binding specific small molecules, leading to gene expression changes.80,81 With riboSNitches, it is the base changes, rather than the binding of a small molecule, that promote RSS rearrangements.82 Experiments have suggested that riboSNitches are not isolated peculiarities: astudy of RSS in a human family trio, identified more than 1900 transcribed variants, corresponding to 15% of all transcribed SNVs that could alter local RNA structure and hence the “RNA folding landscape”.83
