The extent of ribosomal heterogeneity has caught increasing interest over the past few years, as recent studies have highlighted the presence of structural variations of the ribosome. More precisely, the heterogeneity of the ribosome covers multiple scales, including the dynamical aspects of ribosomal motion at the single particle level, specialization at the cellular and subcellular scale, or evolutionary differences across species. Upon solving the ribosome atomic structure at medium to high resolution, cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has enabled investigating all these forms of heterogeneity. In this review, we present some recent advances in quantifying ribosome heterogeneity, with a focus on the conformational and evolutionary variations of the ribosome and their functional implications. These efforts highlight the need for new computational methods and comparative tools, to comprehensively model the continuous conformational transition pathways of the ribosome, as well as its evolution. While developing these methods presents some important challenges, it also provides an opportunity to extend our interpretation and usage of cryo-EM data, which would more generally benefit the study of molecular dynamics and evolution of proteins and other complexes.

Recent advances in Cryo-EM led to a surge of ribosome structures deposited over the past years, including structures from different species, conformational states, or bound with different ligands. Yet, multiple conflicts of nomenclature make the identification and comparison of structures and ortholog components challenging. We present RiboXYZ (available at https://ribosome.xyz), a database that provides organized access to ribosome structures, with several tools for visualisation and study. The database is up-to-date with the Protein Data Bank (PDB) but provides a standardized nomenclature that allows for searching and comparing ribosomal components (proteins, RNA, ligands) across all the available structures. In addition to structured and simplified access to the data, the application has several specialized visualization tools, including the identification and prediction of ligand binding sites, and 3D superimposition of ribosomal components. Overall, RiboXYZ provides a useful toolkit that complements the PDB database, by implementing the current conventions and providing a set of auxiliary tools that have been developed explicitly for analyzing ribosome structures. This toolkit can be easily accessed by both experts and non-experts in structural biology so that they can search, visualize and compare structures, with various potential applications in molecular biology, evolution, and biochemistry.

<abstract><p>Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has become widely used for the past few years in structural biology, to collect single images of macromolecules "frozen in time". As this technique facilitates the identification of multiple conformational states adopted by the same molecule, a direct product of it is a set of 3D volumes, also called EM maps. To gain more insights on the possible mechanisms that govern transitions between different states, and hence the mode of action of a molecule, we recently introduced a bioinformatic tool that interpolates and generates morphing trajectories joining two given EM maps. This tool is based on recent advances made in optimal transport, that allow efficient evaluation of Wasserstein barycenters of 3D shapes. As the overall performance of the method depends on various key parameters, including the sensitivity of the regularization parameter, we performed various numerical experiments to demonstrate how MorphOT can be applied in different contexts and settings. Finally, we discuss current limitations and further potential connections between other optimal transport theories and the conformational heterogeneity problem inherent with cryo-EM data.</p></abstract>

Recent advances in Cryo-EM led to a surge of ribosome structures deposited over the past years, including structures from different species, conformational states, or bound with different ligands. Yet, multiple conflicts of nomenclature make the identification and comparison of structures and ortholog components challenging. We present RiboXYZ (available at https://ribosome.xyz), a database that provides organized access to ribosome structures, with several tools for visualisation and study. The database is up-to-date with the Protein Data Bank (PDB) but provides a standardized nomenclature that allows for searching and comparing ribosomal components (proteins, RNA, ligands) across all the available structures. In addition to structured and simplified access to the data, the application has several specialized visualization tools, including the identification and prediction of ligand binding sites, and 3D superimposition of ribosomal components. Overall, RiboXYZ provides a useful toolkit that complements the PDB database, by implementing the current conventions and providing a set of auxiliary tools that have been developed explicitly for analyzing ribosome structures. This toolkit can be easily accessible by both experts and non-experts in structural biology so that they can search, visualize and compare structures, with various potential applications in molecular biology, evolution, and biochemistry.

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