Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Texas, Austin, TX78712, USA. tony.hwang@mail.utexas.edu
Because of the increasing recognition of the importance of non-coding RNAs in gene regulation, there is considerable interest in identifying RNA motifs in genomic data. In a recent report in BMC Genomics, Breaker and colleagues describe a new algorithm for identifying functional noncoding RNAs in metagenomic sequences of marine organisms, a strategy that may be particularly effective for discovering new and unique riboswitches.