Significant advances in our understanding of RNA architecture, folding and recognition have emerged from structure-function studies on riboswicthes, non-coding RNAs whose sensing domains bind small ligands and whose adjacent expression platforms contain RNA elements involved in the control of gene regulation. We now report on the ligand-bound structure of the Thermotoga petrophila fluoride riboswitch, which adopts a higher-order RNA architecture stabilized by pseudoknot and long-range reversed Watson-Crick and Hoogsteen A•U pair formation. The bound fluoride ion is encapsulated within the junctional architecture, anchored in place through direct coordination to three Mg2+ ions, which in turn are octahedrally coordinated to waters and five inwardly-pointing backbone phosphates. Our structure of the fluoride riboswitch in the bound state defines how RNA can form a binding pocket selective for fluoride, while discriminating against larger halide ions. The T. petrophila fluoride riboswitch most likely functions in gene regulation through a transcription termination mechanism.
Small self-cleaving nucleolytic ribozymes contain catalytic domains that accelerate site-specific cleavage/ligation of phosphodiester backbones. We report on the 2.9-Å crystal structure of the env22 twister ribozyme, which adopts a compact tertiary fold stabilized by co-helical stacking, double-pseudoknot formation and long-range pairing interactions. The U-A cleavage site adopts a splayed-apart conformation with the modeled 2′-O of U positioned for in-line attack on the adjacent to-be-cleaved P-O5′ bond. Both an invariant guanosine and a Mg2+ are directly coordinated to the non-bridging phosphate oxygens at the U-A cleavage step, with the former positioned to contribute to catalysis and the latter to structural integrity. The impact of key mutations on cleavage activity identified an invariant guanosine that contributes to catalysis. Our structure of the in-line aligned env22 twister ribozyme is compared with two recently-reported twister ribozymes structures, which adopt similar global folds, but differ in conformational features around the cleavage site.
RNA-Puzzles is a collective experiment in blind 3D RNA structure prediction. We report here a third round of RNA-Puzzles. Five puzzles, 4, 8, 12, 13, 14, all structures of riboswitch aptamers and puzzle 7, a ribozyme structure, are included in this round of the experiment. The riboswitch structures include biological binding sites for small molecules (S-adenosyl methionine, cyclic diadenosine monophosphate, 5-amino 4-imidazole carboxamide riboside 5 ′ -triphosphate, glutamine) and proteins (YbxF), and one set describes large conformational changes between ligand-free and ligand-bound states. The Varkud satellite ribozyme is the most recently solved structure of a known large ribozyme. All puzzles have established biological functions and require structural understanding to appreciate their molecular mechanisms. Through the use of fast-track experimental data, including multidimensional chemical mapping, and accurate prediction of RNA secondary structure, a large portion of the contacts in 3D have been predicted correctly leading to similar topologies for the top ranking predictions. Template-based and homologyderived predictions could predict structures to particularly high accuracies. However, achieving biological insights from de novo prediction of RNA 3D structures still depends on the size and complexity of the RNA. Blind computational predictions of RNA structures already appear to provide useful structural information in many cases. Similar to the previous RNA-Puzzles Round II experiment, the prediction of non-Watson-Crick interactions and the observed high atomic clash scores reveal a notable need for an algorithm of improvement. All prediction models and assessment results are available at http://ahsoka.ustrasbg.fr/rnapuzzles/.
The field of small self-cleaving nucleolytic ribozymes has been invigorated by the recent discovery of the twister, twister-sister, pistol and hatchet ribozymes. We report on the crystal structure of the env25 pistol ribozyme, which adopts a compact tertiary architecture stabilized by an embedded pseudoknot fold. The G-U cleavage site adopts a splayed-apart conformation with in-line alignment of the modeled 2′-O of G for attack on the adjacent to-be-cleaved P-O5′ bond. Highly conserved residues G40 (N1 position) and A32 (N3 and 2′-OH positions) are aligned to act as general base and general acid respectively to accelerate cleavage chemistry, with their roles confirmed from cleavage assays on mutants, and an increased pKa of 4.7 for A32. Our structure of the pistol ribozyme defines how the overall and local topologies dictate the in-line alignment at the G-U cleavage site, with cleavage assays on mutants identifying key residues participating in acid-base catalyzed cleavage chemistry.
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