Kids: Vault RNA
The majority of what is known about the vRNA was obtained under Dr. Valerie Kickhoefer's leadership, with excellent collaborators including Dr. Deborah Johnson at USC, and Dr. Lea Harrington at University of Toronto and the Amgen Institute. The vRNA does not appear to hold the vault together and thus it is likely to have some role in vault function.
The sequences of the individual nucleotides (building blocks) of the vRNAs from rat, mouse, bullfrog, and human have been determined and found to have different lengths. Despite the differences in length, the RNAs can be folded into similar shapes. Below is the actual sequence and the predicted shape of the vRNA isolated from the rat.
