https://phys.org/news/2018-11-rna-molecules-cells.html

"The flow of information from DNA to protein implicates a copy of the DNA sequence called messenger RNA that serves as template for protein synthesis," said the study's senior author Daniel Zenklusen, an associate professor at UdeM's department of biochemistry and molecular medicine. "Just like DNA, RNA is a long polymer composed of nucleic acids. How these RNA polymers are compacted and organized in cells to allow protein synthesis was so far unknown, in part because we were lacking technologies to visualize these molecules in high resolution," Zenklusen said.

It has long been thought that all messenger RNA, or mRNA, molecules acquire a specific conformation during protein synthesis: the two ends of the molecule coming together to form a stable so-called closed-loop complex. This new study shows that this long-standing model is oversimplified, according to Zenklusen and his team.