We have shown that the domain V of bacterial 23 S rRNA could fold denatured proteins to their active state. This segment of 23 S rRNA could further be split into two parts. One part containing mainly the central loop of domain V could bind denatured human carbonic anhydrase I stably. This association could be reversed by adding the other part of domain V. The released enzyme was directed in such a way by the central loop of domain V that it could now fold by itself to active form. This agrees with our earlier observation that proteins fold within the cell posttranslationally, a process that is completed after release of the newly synthesized polypeptide from the ribosome (Chattopadhyay, S., Pal, S., Chandra, S., Sarkar, D., and DasGupta, C. (1999) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1429, 293-298).We have identified the ribosome as a general protein folding modulator on the basis of its ability to successfully fold all the denatured proteins that we have tried so far (e.g. lactate dehydrogenase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, horseradish peroxidase, restriction endonucleases, alkaline phosphatase, malate dehydrogenase, -lactamase, carbonic anhydrase, -galactosidase, etc.) (1-6). This in vitro protein folding activity has been found to reside in the domain V of the 23 S rRNA in 50 S particle of the ribosome. This activity of ribosome has also been identified in vivo by showing slow posttranslational activation of the enzyme -galactosidase in Escherichia coli that was synthesized just prior to the addition of the 30 S specific protein synthesis inhibitors kasugamycin and streptomycin. This posttranslational activation, however, was immediately arrested by adding antibiotics that bind to domain V of 23 S rRNA of 50 S ribosomal particle (1). The important question then is whether biological entities like molecular chaperons (7,8) and ribosomes fold proteins to their active states following a pathway basically similar to spontaneous folding or whether there will there be a paradigm shift in our understanding of protein folding in the cell when we know how ribosome (2-6, 9 -11), which synthesizes the polypeptide, also folds it to active form.We identified the protein folding activity in the large loop of domain V of 23 S rRNA of bacterial ribosome (4, 9, 10). We have reported in a number of publications (1-6, 10) that the 70 S bacterial ribosomes, the 80 S wheat germ and rat liver ribosomes, the 50 S bacterial ribosomal subunit, its 23 S rRNA, as well as the 660-nt 1 domain V of 23 S rRNA could all fold denatured proteins, and at the end of the reaction they were found to dissociate completely from the proteins without the assistance of any co-factor. This implied that there were at least two steps in these reactions: (a) interaction with unfolded proteins to fold them and (b) dissociation from the folded proteins. We took the 660-nt-long domain V RNA from Bacillus subtilis and further split it into two smaller pieces that acted in a particular sequence on the unfolded protein to fold it. Here we present the role of these t...