Study of RNA structures with a connection to random matrix theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bhadola, Pradeep; Deo, Nivedita

2015-01-01

This manuscript investigates the level of complexity and thermodynamic properties of the real RNA structures and compares the properties with the random RNA sequences. A discussion on the similarities of thermodynamical properties of the real structures with the non linear random matrix model of RNA folding is presented. The structural information contained in the PDB file is exploited to get the base pairing information. The complexity of an RNA structure is defined by a topological quantity called genus which is calculated from the base pairing information. Thermodynamic analysis of the real structures is done numerically. The real structures have a minimum free energy which is very small compared to the randomly generated sequences of the same length. This analysis suggests that there are specific patterns in the structures which are preserved during the evolution of the sequences and certain sequences are discarded by the evolutionary process. Further analyzing the sequences of a fixed length reveal that the RNA structures exist in ensembles i.e. although all the sequences in the ensemble have different series of nucleotides (sequence) they fold into structures that have the same pairs of hydrogen bonding as well as the same minimum free energy. The specific heat of the RNA molecule is numerically estimated at different lengths. The specific heat curve with temperature shows a bump and for some RNA, a double peak behavior is observed. The same behavior is seen in the study of the random matrix model with non linear interaction of RNA folding. The bump in the non linear matrix model can be controlled by the change in the interaction strength.

Disease-associated mutations that alter the RNA structural ensemble.

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Matthew Halvorsen

2010-08-01

Full Text Available Genome-wide association studies (GWAS often identify disease-associated mutations in intergenic and non-coding regions of the genome. Given the high percentage of the human genome that is transcribed, we postulate that for some observed associations the disease phenotype is caused by a structural rearrangement in a regulatory region of the RNA transcript. To identify such mutations, we have performed a genome-wide analysis of all known disease-associated Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs from the Human Gene Mutation Database (HGMD that map to the untranslated regions (UTRs of a gene. Rather than using minimum free energy approaches (e.g. mFold, we use a partition function calculation that takes into consideration the ensemble of possible RNA conformations for a given sequence. We identified in the human genome disease-associated SNPs that significantly alter the global conformation of the UTR to which they map. For six disease-states (Hyperferritinemia Cataract Syndrome, beta-Thalassemia, Cartilage-Hair Hypoplasia, Retinoblastoma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD, and Hypertension, we identified multiple SNPs in UTRs that alter the mRNA structural ensemble of the associated genes. Using a Boltzmann sampling procedure for sub-optimal RNA structures, we are able to characterize and visualize the nature of the conformational changes induced by the disease-associated mutations in the structural ensemble. We observe in several cases (specifically the 5' UTRs of FTL and RB1 SNP-induced conformational changes analogous to those observed in bacterial regulatory Riboswitches when specific ligands bind. We propose that the UTR and SNP combinations we identify constitute a "RiboSNitch," that is a regulatory RNA in which a specific SNP has a structural consequence that results in a disease phenotype. Our SNPfold algorithm can help identify RiboSNitches by leveraging GWAS data and an analysis of the mRNA structural ensemble.

Structure of noncoding RNA is a determinant of function of RNA binding proteins in transcriptional regulation

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Oyoshi Takanori

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract The majority of the noncoding regions of mammalian genomes have been found to be transcribed to generate noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs, resulting in intense interest in their biological roles. During the past decade, numerous ncRNAs and aptamers have been identified as regulators of transcription. 6S RNA, first described as a ncRNA in E. coli, mimics an open promoter structure, which has a large bulge with two hairpin/stalk structures that regulate transcription through interactions with RNA polymerase. B2 RNA, which has stem-loops and unstructured single-stranded regions, represses transcription of mRNA in response to various stresses, including heat shock in mouse cells. The interaction of TLS (translocated in liposarcoma with CBP/p300 was induced by ncRNAs that bind to TLS, and this in turn results in inhibition of CBP/p300 histone acetyltransferase (HAT activity in human cells. Transcription regulator EWS (Ewing's sarcoma, which is highly related to TLS, and TLS specifically bind to G-quadruplex structures in vitro. The carboxy terminus containing the Arg-Gly-Gly (RGG repeat domains in these proteins are necessary for cis-repression of transcription activation and HAT activity by the N-terminal glutamine-rich domain. Especially, the RGG domain in the carboxy terminus of EWS is important for the G-quadruplex specific binding. Together, these data suggest that functions of EWS and TLS are modulated by specific structures of ncRNAs.

Small RNA sequence analysis of adenovirus VA RNA-derived miRNAs reveals an unexpected serotype-specific difference in structure and abundance.

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Wael Kamel

Full Text Available Human adenoviruses (HAds encode for one or two highly abundant virus-associated RNAs, designated VA RNAI and VA RNAII, which fold into stable hairpin structures resembling miRNA precursors. Here we show that the terminal stem of the VA RNAs originating from Ad4, Ad5, Ad11 and Ad37, all undergo Dicer dependent processing into virus-specific miRNAs (so-called mivaRNAs. We further show that the mivaRNA duplex is subjected to a highly asymmetric RISC loading with the 3'-strand from all VA RNAs being the favored strand, except for the Ad37 VA RNAII, where the 5'-mivaRNAII strand was preferentially assembled into RISC. Although the mivaRNA seed sequences are not fully conserved between the HAds a bioinformatics prediction approach suggests that a large fraction of the VA RNAII-, but not the VA RNAI-derived mivaRNAs still are able to target the same cellular genes. Using small RNA deep sequencing we demonstrate that the Dicer processing event in the terminal stem of the VA RNAs is not unique and generates 3'-mivaRNAs with a slight variation of the position of the 5' terminal nucleotide in the RISC loaded guide strand. Also, we show that all analyzed VA RNAs, except Ad37 VA RNAI and Ad5 VA RNAII, utilize an alternative upstream A start site in addition to the classical +1 G start site. Further, the 5'-mivaRNAs with an A start appears to be preferentially incorporated into RISC. Although the majority of mivaRNA research has been done using Ad5 as the model system our analysis demonstrates that the mivaRNAs expressed in Ad11- and Ad37-infected cells are the most abundant mivaRNAs associated with Ago2-containing RISC. Collectively, our results show an unexpected variability in Dicer processing of the VA RNAs and a serotype-specific loading of mivaRNAs into Ago2-based RISC.

On topological RNA interaction structures.

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Qin, Jing; Reidys, Christian M

2013-07-01

Recently a folding algorithm of topological RNA pseudoknot structures was presented in Reidys et al. (2011). This algorithm folds single-stranded γ-structures, that is, RNA structures composed by distinct motifs of bounded topological genus. In this article, we set the theoretical foundations for the folding of the two backbone analogues of γ structures: the RNA γ-interaction structures. These are RNA-RNA interaction structures that are constructed by a finite number of building blocks over two backbones having genus at most γ. Combinatorial properties of γ-interaction structures are of practical interest since they have direct implications for the folding of topological interaction structures. We compute the generating function of γ-interaction structures and show that it is algebraic, which implies that the numbers of interaction structures can be computed recursively. We obtain simple asymptotic formulas for 0- and 1-interaction structures. The simplest class of interaction structures are the 0-interaction structures, which represent the two backbone analogues of secondary structures.

Landscape and variation of RNA secondary structure across the human transcriptome.

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Wan, Yue; Qu, Kun; Zhang, Qiangfeng Cliff; Flynn, Ryan A; Manor, Ohad; Ouyang, Zhengqing; Zhang, Jiajing; Spitale, Robert C; Snyder, Michael P; Segal, Eran; Chang, Howard Y

2014-01-30

In parallel to the genetic code for protein synthesis, a second layer of information is embedded in all RNA transcripts in the form of RNA structure. RNA structure influences practically every step in the gene expression program. However, the nature of most RNA structures or effects of sequence variation on structure are not known. Here we report the initial landscape and variation of RNA secondary structures (RSSs) in a human family trio (mother, father and their child). This provides a comprehensive RSS map of human coding and non-coding RNAs. We identify unique RSS signatures that demarcate open reading frames and splicing junctions, and define authentic microRNA-binding sites. Comparison of native deproteinized RNA isolated from cells versus refolded purified RNA suggests that the majority of the RSS information is encoded within RNA sequence. Over 1,900 transcribed single nucleotide variants (approximately 15% of all transcribed single nucleotide variants) alter local RNA structure. We discover simple sequence and spacing rules that determine the ability of point mutations to impact RSSs. Selective depletion of 'riboSNitches' versus structurally synonymous variants at precise locations suggests selection for specific RNA shapes at thousands of sites, including 3' untranslated regions, binding sites of microRNAs and RNA-binding proteins genome-wide. These results highlight the potentially broad contribution of RNA structure and its variation to gene regulation.

Disruption of Specific RNA-RNA Interactions in a Double-Stranded RNA Virus Inhibits Genome Packaging and Virus Infectivity.

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Fajardo, Teodoro; Sung, Po-Yu; Roy, Polly

2015-12-01

Bluetongue virus (BTV) causes hemorrhagic disease in economically important livestock. The BTV genome is organized into ten discrete double-stranded RNA molecules (S1-S10) which have been suggested to follow a sequential packaging pathway from smallest to largest segment during virus capsid assembly. To substantiate and extend these studies, we have investigated the RNA sorting and packaging mechanisms with a new experimental approach using inhibitory oligonucleotides. Putative packaging signals present in the 3'untranslated regions of BTV segments were targeted by a number of nuclease resistant oligoribonucleotides (ORNs) and their effects on virus replication in cell culture were assessed. ORNs complementary to the 3' UTR of BTV RNAs significantly inhibited virus replication without affecting protein synthesis. Same ORNs were found to inhibit complex formation when added to a novel RNA-RNA interaction assay which measured the formation of supramolecular complexes between and among different RNA segments. ORNs targeting the 3'UTR of BTV segment 10, the smallest RNA segment, were shown to be the most potent and deletions or substitution mutations of the targeted sequences diminished the RNA complexes and abolished the recovery of viable viruses using reverse genetics. Cell-free capsid assembly/RNA packaging assay also confirmed that the inhibitory ORNs could interfere with RNA packaging and further substitution mutations within the putative RNA packaging sequence have identified the recognition sequence concerned. Exchange of 3'UTR between segments have further demonstrated that RNA recognition was segment specific, most likely acting as part of the secondary structure of the entire genomic segment. Our data confirm that genome packaging in this segmented dsRNA virus occurs via the formation of supramolecular complexes formed by the interaction of specific sequences located in the 3' UTRs. Additionally, the inhibition of packaging in-trans with inhibitory ORNs

Structure of Escherichia coli Hfq bound to polyriboadenylate RNA

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Link, Todd M; Valentin-Hansen, Poul; Brennan, Richard G

2009-01-01

(A) RNA, A(15). The structure reveals a unique RNA binding mechanism. Unlike uridine-containing sequences, which bind to the "proximal" face, the poly(A) tract binds to the "distal" face of Hfq using 6 tripartite binding motifs. Each motif consists of an adenosine specificity site (A site), which......Hfq is a small, highly abundant hexameric protein that is found in many bacteria and plays a critical role in mRNA expression and RNA stability. As an "RNA chaperone," Hfq binds AU-rich sequences and facilitates the trans annealing of small RNAs (sRNAs) to their target mRNAs, typically resulting...... in the down-regulation of gene expression. Hfq also plays a key role in bacterial RNA decay by binding tightly to polyadenylate [poly(A)] tracts. The structural mechanism by which Hfq recognizes and binds poly(A) is unknown. Here, we report the crystal structure of Escherichia coli Hfq bound to the poly...

Solving RNA's structural secrets: interaction with antibodies and crystal structure of a nuclease resistant RNA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wallace, S.T.

1998-10-01

This Ph.D. thesis concerns the structural characterization of RNA. The work is split into two sections: 1) in vitro selection and characterization of RNAs which bind antibiotics and 2) crystal structure of a nuclease resistant RNA molecule used in antisense applications. Understanding antibiotic-RNA interactions is crucial in aiding rational drug design. We were interested in studying antibiotic interactions with RNAs small enough to characterize at the molecular and possibly at the atomic level. In order to do so, we previously performed in vitro selection to find small RNAs which bind to the peptide antibiotic viomycin and the aminoglycoside antibiotic streptomycin. The characterization of the viomycin-binding RNAs revealed the necessity of a pseudoknot-structure in order to interact with the antibiotic. The RNAs which were selected to interact with streptomycin require the presence of magnesium to bind the antibiotic. One of the RNAs, upon interacting with streptomycin undergoes a significant conformational change spanning the entire RNA sequence needed to bind the antibiotic. In a quest to design oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) which are able to specifically bid and inactivate the mRNA of a gene, it is necessary to fulfill two criteria: 1) increase binding affinity between the ODN and the target RNA and 2) increase the ODN's resistance to nuclease degradation. An ODN with an aminopropyl modification at the 2' position of its ribose has emerged as the most successful candidate at fulfilling both criteria. It is the most nuclease resistant modification known to date. We were interested in explaining how this modification is able to circumvent degradation by nucleases. A dodecamer containing a single 2'-O-aminopropyl modified nucleotide was crystallized and the structure was solved to a resolution of 1.6 A. In an attempt to explain the nuclease resistance, the crystal coordinates were modeled into the active exonuclease site of DNA polymerase I. We propose the

Efficient RNA structure comparison algorithms.

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Arslan, Abdullah N; Anandan, Jithendar; Fry, Eric; Monschke, Keith; Ganneboina, Nitin; Bowerman, Jason

2017-12-01

Recently proposed relative addressing-based ([Formula: see text]) RNA secondary structure representation has important features by which an RNA structure database can be stored into a suffix array. A fast substructure search algorithm has been proposed based on binary search on this suffix array. Using this substructure search algorithm, we present a fast algorithm that finds the largest common substructure of given multiple RNA structures in [Formula: see text] format. The multiple RNA structure comparison problem is NP-hard in its general formulation. We introduced a new problem for comparing multiple RNA structures. This problem has more strict similarity definition and objective, and we propose an algorithm that solves this problem efficiently. We also develop another comparison algorithm that iteratively calls this algorithm to locate nonoverlapping large common substructures in compared RNAs. With the new resulting tools, we improved the RNASSAC website (linked from http://faculty.tamuc.edu/aarslan ). This website now also includes two drawing tools: one specialized for preparing RNA substructures that can be used as input by the search tool, and another one for automatically drawing the entire RNA structure from a given structure sequence.

RNACompress: Grammar-based compression and informational complexity measurement of RNA secondary structure

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Chen Chun

2008-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background With the rapid emergence of RNA databases and newly identified non-coding RNAs, an efficient compression algorithm for RNA sequence and structural information is needed for the storage and analysis of such data. Although several algorithms for compressing DNA sequences have been proposed, none of them are suitable for the compression of RNA sequences with their secondary structures simultaneously. This kind of compression not only facilitates the maintenance of RNA data, but also supplies a novel way to measure the informational complexity of RNA structural data, raising the possibility of studying the relationship between the functional activities of RNA structures and their complexities, as well as various structural properties of RNA based on compression. Results RNACompress employs an efficient grammar-based model to compress RNA sequences and their secondary structures. The main goals of this algorithm are two fold: (1 present a robust and effective way for RNA structural data compression; (2 design a suitable model to represent RNA secondary structure as well as derive the informational complexity of the structural data based on compression. Our extensive tests have shown that RNACompress achieves a universally better compression ratio compared with other sequence-specific or common text-specific compression algorithms, such as Gencompress, winrar and gzip. Moreover, a test of the activities of distinct GTP-binding RNAs (aptamers compared with their structural complexity shows that our defined informational complexity can be used to describe how complexity varies with activity. These results lead to an objective means of comparing the functional properties of heteropolymers from the information perspective. Conclusion A universal algorithm for the compression of RNA secondary structure as well as the evaluation of its informational complexity is discussed in this paper. We have developed RNACompress, as a useful tool

Literature-based condition-specific miRNA-mRNA target prediction.

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Minsik Oh

Full Text Available miRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression by binding to the 3'-UTR of genes. Many recent studies have reported that miRNAs play important biological roles by regulating specific mRNAs or genes. Many sequence-based target prediction algorithms have been developed to predict miRNA targets. However, these methods are not designed for condition-specific target predictions and produce many false positives; thus, expression-based target prediction algorithms have been developed for condition-specific target predictions. A typical strategy to utilize expression data is to leverage the negative control roles of miRNAs on genes. To control false positives, a stringent cutoff value is typically set, but in this case, these methods tend to reject many true target relationships, i.e., false negatives. To overcome these limitations, additional information should be utilized. The literature is probably the best resource that we can utilize. Recent literature mining systems compile millions of articles with experiments designed for specific biological questions, and the systems provide a function to search for specific information. To utilize the literature information, we used a literature mining system, BEST, that automatically extracts information from the literature in PubMed and that allows the user to perform searches of the literature with any English words. By integrating omics data analysis methods and BEST, we developed Context-MMIA, a miRNA-mRNA target prediction method that combines expression data analysis results and the literature information extracted based on the user-specified context. In the pathway enrichment analysis using genes included in the top 200 miRNA-targets, Context-MMIA outperformed the four existing target prediction methods that we tested. In another test on whether prediction methods can re-produce experimentally validated target relationships, Context-MMIA outperformed the four existing target prediction

Identification of Subtype Specific miRNA-mRNA Functional Regulatory Modules in Matched miRNA-mRNA Expression Data: Multiple Myeloma as a Case

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Yunpeng Zhang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Identification of miRNA-mRNA modules is an important step to elucidate their combinatorial effect on the pathogenesis and mechanisms underlying complex diseases. Current identification methods primarily are based upon miRNA-target information and matched miRNA and mRNA expression profiles. However, for heterogeneous diseases, the miRNA-mRNA regulatory mechanisms may differ between subtypes, leading to differences in clinical behavior. In order to explore the pathogenesis of each subtype, it is important to identify subtype specific miRNA-mRNA modules. In this study, we integrated the Ping-Pong algorithm and multiobjective genetic algorithm to identify subtype specific miRNA-mRNA functional regulatory modules (MFRMs through integrative analysis of three biological data sets: GO biological processes, miRNA target information, and matched miRNA and mRNA expression data. We applied our method on a heterogeneous disease, multiple myeloma (MM, to identify MM subtype specific MFRMs. The constructed miRNA-mRNA regulatory networks provide modular outlook at subtype specific miRNA-mRNA interactions. Furthermore, clustering analysis demonstrated that heterogeneous MFRMs were able to separate corresponding MM subtypes. These subtype specific MFRMs may aid in the further elucidation of the pathogenesis of each subtype and may serve to guide MM subtype diagnosis and treatment.

JNSViewer-A JavaScript-based Nucleotide Sequence Viewer for DNA/RNA secondary structures.

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Shi, Jieming; Li, Xi; Dong, Min; Graham, Mitchell; Yadav, Nehul; Liang, Chun

2017-01-01

Many tools are available for visualizing RNA or DNA secondary structures, but there is scarce implementation in JavaScript that provides seamless integration with the increasingly popular web computational platforms. We have developed JNSViewer, a highly interactive web service, which is bundled with several popular tools for DNA/RNA secondary structure prediction and can provide precise and interactive correspondence among nucleotides, dot-bracket data, secondary structure graphs, and genic annotations. In JNSViewer, users can perform RNA secondary structure predictions with different programs and settings, add customized genic annotations in GFF format to structure graphs, search for specific linear motifs, and extract relevant structure graphs of sub-sequences. JNSViewer also allows users to choose a transcript or specific segment of Arabidopsis thaliana genome sequences and predict the corresponding secondary structure. Popular genome browsers (i.e., JBrowse and BrowserGenome) were integrated into JNSViewer to provide powerful visualizations of chromosomal locations, genic annotations, and secondary structures. In addition, we used StructureFold with default settings to predict some RNA structures for Arabidopsis by incorporating in vivo high-throughput RNA structure profiling data and stored the results in our web server, which might be a useful resource for RNA secondary structure studies in plants. JNSViewer is available at http://bioinfolab.miamioh.edu/jnsviewer/index.html.

JNSViewer—A JavaScript-based Nucleotide Sequence Viewer for DNA/RNA secondary structures

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Min; Graham, Mitchell; Yadav, Nehul

2017-01-01

Many tools are available for visualizing RNA or DNA secondary structures, but there is scarce implementation in JavaScript that provides seamless integration with the increasingly popular web computational platforms. We have developed JNSViewer, a highly interactive web service, which is bundled with several popular tools for DNA/RNA secondary structure prediction and can provide precise and interactive correspondence among nucleotides, dot-bracket data, secondary structure graphs, and genic annotations. In JNSViewer, users can perform RNA secondary structure predictions with different programs and settings, add customized genic annotations in GFF format to structure graphs, search for specific linear motifs, and extract relevant structure graphs of sub-sequences. JNSViewer also allows users to choose a transcript or specific segment of Arabidopsis thaliana genome sequences and predict the corresponding secondary structure. Popular genome browsers (i.e., JBrowse and BrowserGenome) were integrated into JNSViewer to provide powerful visualizations of chromosomal locations, genic annotations, and secondary structures. In addition, we used StructureFold with default settings to predict some RNA structures for Arabidopsis by incorporating in vivo high-throughput RNA structure profiling data and stored the results in our web server, which might be a useful resource for RNA secondary structure studies in plants. JNSViewer is available at http://bioinfolab.miamioh.edu/jnsviewer/index.html. PMID:28582416

JNSViewer-A JavaScript-based Nucleotide Sequence Viewer for DNA/RNA secondary structures.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jieming Shi

Full Text Available Many tools are available for visualizing RNA or DNA secondary structures, but there is scarce implementation in JavaScript that provides seamless integration with the increasingly popular web computational platforms. We have developed JNSViewer, a highly interactive web service, which is bundled with several popular tools for DNA/RNA secondary structure prediction and can provide precise and interactive correspondence among nucleotides, dot-bracket data, secondary structure graphs, and genic annotations. In JNSViewer, users can perform RNA secondary structure predictions with different programs and settings, add customized genic annotations in GFF format to structure graphs, search for specific linear motifs, and extract relevant structure graphs of sub-sequences. JNSViewer also allows users to choose a transcript or specific segment of Arabidopsis thaliana genome sequences and predict the corresponding secondary structure. Popular genome browsers (i.e., JBrowse and BrowserGenome were integrated into JNSViewer to provide powerful visualizations of chromosomal locations, genic annotations, and secondary structures. In addition, we used StructureFold with default settings to predict some RNA structures for Arabidopsis by incorporating in vivo high-throughput RNA structure profiling data and stored the results in our web server, which might be a useful resource for RNA secondary structure studies in plants. JNSViewer is available at http://bioinfolab.miamioh.edu/jnsviewer/index.html.

Characteristics and Prediction of RNA Structure

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Hengwu Li

2014-01-01

Full Text Available RNA secondary structures with pseudoknots are often predicted by minimizing free energy, which is NP-hard. Most RNAs fold during transcription from DNA into RNA through a hierarchical pathway wherein secondary structures form prior to tertiary structures. Real RNA secondary structures often have local instead of global optimization because of kinetic reasons. The performance of RNA structure prediction may be improved by considering dynamic and hierarchical folding mechanisms. This study is a novel report on RNA folding that accords with the golden mean characteristic based on the statistical analysis of the real RNA secondary structures of all 480 sequences from RNA STRAND, which are validated by NMR or X-ray. The length ratios of domains in these sequences are approximately 0.382L, 0.5L, 0.618L, and L, where L is the sequence length. These points are just the important golden sections of sequence. With this characteristic, an algorithm is designed to predict RNA hierarchical structures and simulate RNA folding by dynamically folding RNA structures according to the above golden section points. The sensitivity and number of predicted pseudoknots of our algorithm are better than those of the Mfold, HotKnots, McQfold, ProbKnot, and Lhw-Zhu algorithms. Experimental results reflect the folding rules of RNA from a new angle that is close to natural folding.

Structural modeling of tissue-specific mitochondrial alanyl-tRNA synthetase (AARS2 defects predicts differential effects on aminoacylation

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Liliya eEuro

2015-02-01

Full Text Available The accuracy of mitochondrial protein synthesis is dependent on the coordinated action of nuclear-encoded mitochondrial aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (mtARSs and the mitochondrial DNA-encoded tRNAs. The recent advances in whole-exome sequencing have revealed the importance of the mtARS proteins for mitochondrial pathophysiology since nearly every nuclear gene for mtARS (out of 19 is now recognized as a disease gene for mitochondrial disease. Typically, defects in each mtARS have been identified in one tissue-specific disease, most commonly affecting the brain, or in one syndrome. However, mutations in the AARS2 gene for mitochondrial alanyl-tRNA synthetase (mtAlaRS have been reported both in patients with infantile-onset cardiomyopathy and in patients with childhood to adulthood-onset leukoencephalopathy. We present here an investigation of the effects of the described mutations on the structure of the synthetase, in an effort to understand the tissue-specific outcomes of the different mutations.The mtAlaRS differs from the other mtARSs because in addition to the aminoacylation domain, it has a conserved editing domain for deacylating tRNAs that have been mischarged with incorrect amino acids. We show that the cardiomyopathy phenotype results from a single allele, causing an amino acid change p.R592W in the editing domain of AARS2, whereas the leukodystrophy mutations are located in other domains of the synthetase. Nevertheless, our structural analysis predicts that all mutations reduce the aminoacylation activity of the synthetase, because all mtAlaRS domains contribute to tRNA binding for aminoacylation. According to our model, the cardiomyopathy mutations severely compromise aminoacylation whereas partial activity is retained by the mutation combinations found in the leukodystrophy patients. These predictions provide a hypothesis for the molecular basis of the distinct tissue-specific phenotypic outcomes.

Unzippers, Resolvers and Sensors: A Structural and Functional Biochemistry Tale of RNA Helicases

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Ana Lúcia Leitão

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The centrality of RNA within the biological world is an irrefutable fact that currently attracts increasing attention from the scientific community. The panoply of functional RNAs requires the existence of specific biological caretakers, RNA helicases, devoted to maintain the proper folding of those molecules, resolving unstable structures. However, evolution has taken advantage of the specific position and characteristics of RNA helicases to develop new functions for these proteins, which are at the interface of the basic processes for transference of information from DNA to proteins. RNA helicases are involved in many biologically relevant processes, not only as RNA chaperones, but also as signal transducers, scaffolds of molecular complexes, and regulatory elements. Structural biology studies during the last decade, founded in X-ray crystallography, have characterized in detail several RNA-helicases. This comprehensive review summarizes the structural knowledge accumulated in the last two decades within this family of proteins, with special emphasis on the structure-function relationships of the most widely-studied families of RNA helicases: the DEAD-box, RIG-I-like and viral NS3 classes.

R2R - software to speed the depiction of aesthetic consensus RNA secondary structures

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Weinberg Zasha

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background With continuing identification of novel structured noncoding RNAs, there is an increasing need to create schematic diagrams showing the consensus features of these molecules. RNA structural diagrams are typically made either with general-purpose drawing programs like Adobe Illustrator, or with automated or interactive programs specific to RNA. Unfortunately, the use of applications like Illustrator is extremely time consuming, while existing RNA-specific programs produce figures that are useful, but usually not of the same aesthetic quality as those produced at great cost in Illustrator. Additionally, most existing RNA-specific applications are designed for drawing single RNA molecules, not consensus diagrams. Results We created R2R, a computer program that facilitates the generation of aesthetic and readable drawings of RNA consensus diagrams in a fraction of the time required with general-purpose drawing programs. Since the inference of a consensus RNA structure typically requires a multiple-sequence alignment, the R2R user annotates the alignment with commands directing the layout and annotation of the RNA. R2R creates SVG or PDF output that can be imported into Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape or CorelDRAW. R2R can be used to create consensus sequence and secondary structure models for novel RNA structures or to revise models when new representatives for known RNA classes become available. Although R2R does not currently have a graphical user interface, it has proven useful in our efforts to create 100 schematic models of distinct noncoding RNA classes. Conclusions R2R makes it possible to obtain high-quality drawings of the consensus sequence and structural models of many diverse RNA structures with a more practical amount of effort. R2R software is available at http://breaker.research.yale.edu/R2R and as an Additional file.

R2R - software to speed the depiction of aesthetic consensus RNA secondary structures

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background With continuing identification of novel structured noncoding RNAs, there is an increasing need to create schematic diagrams showing the consensus features of these molecules. RNA structural diagrams are typically made either with general-purpose drawing programs like Adobe Illustrator, or with automated or interactive programs specific to RNA. Unfortunately, the use of applications like Illustrator is extremely time consuming, while existing RNA-specific programs produce figures that are useful, but usually not of the same aesthetic quality as those produced at great cost in Illustrator. Additionally, most existing RNA-specific applications are designed for drawing single RNA molecules, not consensus diagrams. Results We created R2R, a computer program that facilitates the generation of aesthetic and readable drawings of RNA consensus diagrams in a fraction of the time required with general-purpose drawing programs. Since the inference of a consensus RNA structure typically requires a multiple-sequence alignment, the R2R user annotates the alignment with commands directing the layout and annotation of the RNA. R2R creates SVG or PDF output that can be imported into Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape or CorelDRAW. R2R can be used to create consensus sequence and secondary structure models for novel RNA structures or to revise models when new representatives for known RNA classes become available. Although R2R does not currently have a graphical user interface, it has proven useful in our efforts to create 100 schematic models of distinct noncoding RNA classes. Conclusions R2R makes it possible to obtain high-quality drawings of the consensus sequence and structural models of many diverse RNA structures with a more practical amount of effort. R2R software is available at http://breaker.research.yale.edu/R2R and as an Additional file. PMID:21205310

R2R--software to speed the depiction of aesthetic consensus RNA secondary structures.

Science.gov (United States)

Weinberg, Zasha; Breaker, Ronald R

2011-01-04

With continuing identification of novel structured noncoding RNAs, there is an increasing need to create schematic diagrams showing the consensus features of these molecules. RNA structural diagrams are typically made either with general-purpose drawing programs like Adobe Illustrator, or with automated or interactive programs specific to RNA. Unfortunately, the use of applications like Illustrator is extremely time consuming, while existing RNA-specific programs produce figures that are useful, but usually not of the same aesthetic quality as those produced at great cost in Illustrator. Additionally, most existing RNA-specific applications are designed for drawing single RNA molecules, not consensus diagrams. We created R2R, a computer program that facilitates the generation of aesthetic and readable drawings of RNA consensus diagrams in a fraction of the time required with general-purpose drawing programs. Since the inference of a consensus RNA structure typically requires a multiple-sequence alignment, the R2R user annotates the alignment with commands directing the layout and annotation of the RNA. R2R creates SVG or PDF output that can be imported into Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape or CorelDRAW. R2R can be used to create consensus sequence and secondary structure models for novel RNA structures or to revise models when new representatives for known RNA classes become available. Although R2R does not currently have a graphical user interface, it has proven useful in our efforts to create 100 schematic models of distinct noncoding RNA classes. R2R makes it possible to obtain high-quality drawings of the consensus sequence and structural models of many diverse RNA structures with a more practical amount of effort. R2R software is available at http://breaker.research.yale.edu/R2R and as an Additional file.

Sequence-structure relationships in RNA loops: establishing the basis for loop homology modeling.

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Schudoma, Christian; May, Patrick; Nikiforova, Viktoria; Walther, Dirk

2010-01-01

The specific function of RNA molecules frequently resides in their seemingly unstructured loop regions. We performed a systematic analysis of RNA loops extracted from experimentally determined three-dimensional structures of RNA molecules. A comprehensive loop-structure data set was created and organized into distinct clusters based on structural and sequence similarity. We detected clear evidence of the hallmark of homology present in the sequence-structure relationships in loops. Loops differing by structures. Thus, our results support the application of homology modeling for RNA loop model building. We established a threshold that may guide the sequence divergence-based selection of template structures for RNA loop homology modeling. Of all possible sequences that are, under the assumption of isosteric relationships, theoretically compatible with actual sequences observed in RNA structures, only a small fraction is contained in the Rfam database of RNA sequences and classes implying that the actual RNA loop space may consist of a limited number of unique loop structures and conserved sequences. The loop-structure data sets are made available via an online database, RLooM. RLooM also offers functionalities for the modeling of RNA loop structures in support of RNA engineering and design efforts.

Crystal Structure of the 23S rRNA Fragment Specific to r-Protein L1 and Designed Model of the Ribosomal L1 Stalk from Haloarcula marismortui

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Azat Gabdulkhakov

2017-02-01

Full Text Available The crystal structure of the 92-nucleotide L1-specific fragment of 23S rRNA from Haloarcula marismortui (Hma has been determined at 3.3 Å resolution. Similar to the corresponding bacterial rRNA fragments, this structure contains joined helix 76-77 topped by an approximately globular structure formed by the residual part of the L1 stalk rRNA. The position of HmaL1 relative to the rRNA was found by its docking to the rRNA fragment using the L1-rRNA complex from Thermus thermophilus as a guide model. In spite of the anomalous negative charge of the halophilic archaeal protein, the conformation of the HmaL1-rRNA interface appeared to be very close to that observed in all known L1-rRNA complexes. The designed structure of the L1 stalk was incorporated into the H. marismortui 50S ribosomal subunit. Comparison of relative positions of L1 stalks in 50S subunits from H. marismortui and T. thermophilus made it possible to reveal the site of inflection of rRNA during the ribosome function.

Structural basis of genomic RNA (gRNA) dimerization and packaging determinants of mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV).

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Aktar, Suriya J; Vivet-Boudou, Valérie; Ali, Lizna M; Jabeen, Ayesha; Kalloush, Rawan M; Richer, Delphine; Mustafa, Farah; Marquet, Roland; Rizvi, Tahir A

2014-11-14

One of the hallmarks of retroviral life cycle is the efficient and specific packaging of two copies of retroviral gRNA in the form of a non-covalent RNA dimer by the assembling virions. It is becoming increasingly clear that the process of dimerization is closely linked with gRNA packaging, and in some retroviruses, the latter depends on the former. Earlier mutational analysis of the 5' end of the MMTV genome indicated that MMTV gRNA packaging determinants comprise sequences both within the 5' untranslated region (5' UTR) and the beginning of gag. The RNA secondary structure of MMTV gRNA packaging sequences was elucidated employing selective 2'hydroxyl acylation analyzed by primer extension (SHAPE). SHAPE analyses revealed the presence of a U5/Gag long-range interaction (U5/Gag LRI), not predicted by minimum free-energy structure predictions that potentially stabilizes the global structure of this region. Structure conservation along with base-pair covariations between different strains of MMTV further supported the SHAPE-validated model. The 5' region of the MMTV gRNA contains multiple palindromic (pal) sequences that could initiate intermolecular interaction during RNA dimerization. In vitro RNA dimerization, SHAPE analysis, and structure prediction approaches on a series of pal mutants revealed that MMTV RNA utilizes a palindromic point of contact to initiate intermolecular interactions between two gRNAs, leading to dimerization. This contact point resides within pal II (5' CGGCCG 3') at the 5' UTR and contains a canonical "GC" dyad and therefore likely constitutes the MMTV RNA dimerization initiation site (DIS). Further analyses of these pal mutants employing in vivo genetic approaches indicate that pal II, as well as pal sequences located in the primer binding site (PBS) are both required for efficient MMTV gRNA packaging. Employing structural prediction, biochemical, and genetic approaches, we show that pal II functions as a primary point of contact between

RNA secondary structures of the bacteriophage phi6 packaging regions.

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Pirttimaa, M J; Bamford, D H

2000-06-01

Bacteriophage phi6 genome consists of three segments of double-stranded RNA. During maturation, single-stranded copies of these segments are packaged into preformed polymerase complex particles. Only phi6 RNA is packaged, and each particle contains only one copy of each segment. An in vitro packaging and replication assay has been developed for phi6, and the packaging signals (pac sites) have been mapped to the 5' ends of the RNA segments. In this study, we propose secondary structure models for the pac sites of phi6 single-stranded RNA segments. Our models accommodate data from structure-specific chemical modifications, free energy minimizations, and phylogenetic comparisons. Previously reported pac site deletion studies are also discussed. Each pac site possesses a unique architecture, that, however, contains common structural elements.

Integrated structural biology to unravel molecular mechanisms of protein-RNA recognition.

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Schlundt, Andreas; Tants, Jan-Niklas; Sattler, Michael

2017-04-15

Recent advances in RNA sequencing technologies have greatly expanded our knowledge of the RNA landscape in cells, often with spatiotemporal resolution. These techniques identified many new (often non-coding) RNA molecules. Large-scale studies have also discovered novel RNA binding proteins (RBPs), which exhibit single or multiple RNA binding domains (RBDs) for recognition of specific sequence or structured motifs in RNA. Starting from these large-scale approaches it is crucial to unravel the molecular principles of protein-RNA recognition in ribonucleoprotein complexes (RNPs) to understand the underlying mechanisms of gene regulation. Structural biology and biophysical studies at highest possible resolution are key to elucidate molecular mechanisms of RNA recognition by RBPs and how conformational dynamics, weak interactions and cooperative binding contribute to the formation of specific, context-dependent RNPs. While large compact RNPs can be well studied by X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM, analysis of dynamics and weak interaction necessitates the use of solution methods to capture these properties. Here, we illustrate methods to study the structure and conformational dynamics of protein-RNA complexes in solution starting from the identification of interaction partners in a given RNP. Biophysical and biochemical techniques support the characterization of a protein-RNA complex and identify regions relevant in structural analysis. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a powerful tool to gain information on folding, stability and dynamics of RNAs and characterize RNPs in solution. It provides crucial information that is complementary to the static pictures derived from other techniques. NMR can be readily combined with other solution techniques, such as small angle X-ray and/or neutron scattering (SAXS/SANS), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), and Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), which provide information about overall shapes, internal domain

New windows into retroviral RNA structures.

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Jayaraman, Dhivya; Kenyon, Julia Claire

2018-01-25

The multiple roles of both viral and cellular RNAs have become increasingly apparent in recent years, and techniques to model them have become significantly more powerful, enabling faster and more accurate visualization of RNA structures. Techniques such as SHAPE (selective 2'OH acylation analysed by primer extension) have revolutionized the field, and have been used to examine RNAs belonging to many and diverse retroviruses. Secondary structure probing reagents such as these have been aided by the development of faster methods of analysis either via capillary or next-generation sequencing, allowing the analysis of entire genomes, and of retroviral RNA structures within virions. Techniques to model the three-dimensional structures of these large RNAs have also recently developed. The flexibility of retroviral RNAs, both structural and functional, is clear from the results of these new experimental techniques. Retroviral RNA structures and structural changes control many stages of the lifecycle, and both the RNA structures themselves and their interactions with ligands are potential new drug targets. In addition, our growing understanding of retroviral RNA structures is aiding our knowledge of cellular RNA form and function.

Predicting RNA Structure Using Mutual Information

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Freyhult, E.; Moulton, V.; Gardner, P. P.

2005-01-01

, to display and predict conserved RNA secondary structure (including pseudoknots) from an alignment. Results: We show that MIfold can be used to predict simple pseudoknots, and that the performance can be adjusted to make it either more sensitive or more selective. We also demonstrate that the overall...... package. Conclusion: MIfold provides a useful supplementary tool to programs such as RNA Structure Logo, RNAalifold and COVE, and should be useful for automatically generating structural predictions for databases such as Rfam. Availability: MIfold is freely available from http......Background: With the ever-increasing number of sequenced RNAs and the establishment of new RNA databases, such as the Comparative RNA Web Site and Rfam, there is a growing need for accurately and automatically predicting RNA structures from multiple alignments. Since RNA secondary structure...

Structures of two exonucleases involved in controlled RNA turnover in yeast

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jonstrup, Anette Thyssen; Midtgaard, Søren Fuglsang; Van, Lan Bich

divalent cations. The Pop2p structure reveals that the ability of this enzyme to degrade poly(A)/(U)/(C), but not poly(G) may be determined by structural hindrance of interaction with this specific nucleotide. In Rrp6p, mutations known to confer specific RNA degradation phenotypes in yeast nuclei can now...... rid of aberrant RNAs. Here we describe the structures of two 3'-5' exonucleases involved in controlled RNA decay in yeast, Pop2p and Rrp6p. Rrp6p is associated with the nuclear exosome where it participates in the degradation of improperly processed precursor mRNAs and trimming of stable RNAs [1]. Pop...

A novel knowledge-based potential for RNA 3D structure evaluation

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Yang, Yi; Gu, Qi; Zhang, Ben-Gong; Shi, Ya-Zhou; Shao, Zhi-Gang

2018-03-01

Ribonucleic acids (RNAs) play a vital role in biology, and knowledge of their three-dimensional (3D) structure is required to understand their biological functions. Recently structural prediction methods have been developed to address this issue, but a series of RNA 3D structures are generally predicted by most existing methods. Therefore, the evaluation of the predicted structures is generally indispensable. Although several methods have been proposed to assess RNA 3D structures, the existing methods are not precise enough. In this work, a new all-atom knowledge-based potential is developed for more accurately evaluating RNA 3D structures. The potential not only includes local and nonlocal interactions but also fully considers the specificity of each RNA by introducing a retraining mechanism. Based on extensive test sets generated from independent methods, the proposed potential correctly distinguished the native state and ranked near-native conformations to effectively select the best. Furthermore, the proposed potential precisely captured RNA structural features such as base-stacking and base-pairing. Comparisons with existing potential methods show that the proposed potential is very reliable and accurate in RNA 3D structure evaluation. Project supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Grants Nos. 11605125, 11105054, 11274124, and 11401448).

Topology of RNA-RNA interaction structures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Jørgen Ellegaard; Huang, Fenix Wenda; Penner, Robert

2012-01-01

Abstract The topological filtration of interacting RNA complexes is studied, and the role is analyzed of certain diagrams called irreducible shadows, which form suitable building blocks for more general structures. We prove that, for two interacting RNAs, called interaction structures, there exist...

Gender-specific hierarchy in nuage localization of PIWI-interacting RNA factors in Drosophila

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Mikiko C Siomi

2011-08-01

Full Text Available PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs are germline-specific small non-coding RNAs that form piRNA-induced silencing complexes (piRISCs by associating with PIWI proteins, a subclade of the Argonaute proteins predominantly expressed in the germline. piRISCs protect the integrity of the germline genome from invasive transposable DNA elements by silencing them. Multiple piRNA biogenesis factors have been identified in Drosophila. The majority of piRNA factors are localized in the nuage, electron-dense non-membranous cytoplasmic structures located in the perinuclear regions of germ cells. Thus, piRNA biogenesis is thought to occur in the nuage in germ cells. Immunofluorescence analyses of ovaries from piRNA factor mutants have revealed a localization hierarchy of piRNA factors in female nuage. However, whether this hierarchy is female-specific or can also be applied in male gonads remains undetermined. Here, we show by immunostaining of both ovaries and testes from piRNA factor mutants that the molecular hierarchy of piRNA factors shows gender-specificity, especially for Krimper (Krimp, a Tudor-domain containing protein of unknown function(s: Krimp is dispensable for PIWI protein Aubergine (Aub nuage localization in ovaries but Krimp and Aub require each other for their proper nuage localization in testes. This suggests that the functional requirement of Krimp in piRNA biogenesis may be different in male and female gonads.

lncRNA Structure: Message to the Heart.

Science.gov (United States)

Fazal, Furqan M; Chang, Howard Y

2016-10-06

In this issue, Xue et al. (2016) describe the secondary structure of the heart-specific long non-coding RNA Braveheart, leading to the discovery of a short, asymmetric G-rich loop that controls cardiac lineage commitment by interacting with the transcription factor CNBP. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

On RNA-RNA interaction structures of fixed topological genus.

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Fu, Benjamin M M; Han, Hillary S W; Reidys, Christian M

2015-04-01

Interacting RNA complexes are studied via bicellular maps using a filtration via their topological genus. Our main result is a new bijection for RNA-RNA interaction structures and a linear time uniform sampling algorithm for RNA complexes of fixed topological genus. The bijection allows to either reduce the topological genus of a bicellular map directly, or to lose connectivity by decomposing the complex into a pair of single stranded RNA structures. Our main result is proved bijectively. It provides an explicit algorithm of how to rewire the corresponding complexes and an unambiguous decomposition grammar. Using the concept of genus induction, we construct bicellular maps of fixed topological genus g uniformly in linear time. We present various statistics on these topological RNA complexes and compare our findings with biological complexes. Furthermore we show how to construct loop-energy based complexes using our decomposition grammar. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

5'-Phospho-RNA Acceptor Specificity of GDP Polyribonucleotidyltransferase of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus in mRNA Capping.

Science.gov (United States)

Ogino, Minako; Ogino, Tomoaki

2017-03-15

The GDP polyribonucleotidyltransferase (PRNTase) domain of the multifunctional L protein of rhabdoviruses, such as vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and rabies virus, catalyzes the transfer of 5'-phospho-RNA (pRNA) from 5'-triphospho-RNA (pppRNA) to GDP via a covalent enzyme-pRNA intermediate to generate a 5'-cap structure (GpppA). Here, using an improved oligo-RNA capping assay with the VSV L protein, we showed that the Michaelis constants for GDP and pppAACAG (VSV mRNA-start sequence) are 0.03 and 0.4 μM, respectively. A competition assay between GDP and GDP analogues in the GpppA formation and pRNA transfer assay using GDP analogues as pRNA acceptors indicated that the PRNTase domain recognizes the C-2-amino group, but not the C-6-oxo group, N-1-hydrogen, or N-7-nitrogen, of GDP for the cap formation. 2,6-Diaminopurine-riboside (DAP), 7-deazaguanosine (7-deaza-G), and 7-methylguanosine (m 7 G) diphosphates efficiently accepted pRNA, resulting in the formation of DAPpppA, 7-deaza-GpppA, and m 7 GpppA (cap 0), respectively. Furthermore, either the 2'- or 3'-hydroxyl group of GDP was found to be required for efficient pRNA transfer. A 5'-diphosphate form of antiviral ribavirin weakly inhibited the GpppA formation but did not act as a pRNA acceptor. These results indicate that the PRNTase domain has a unique guanosine-binding mode different from that of eukaryotic mRNA capping enzyme, guanylyltransferase. IMPORTANCE mRNAs of nonsegmented negative-strand (NNS) RNA viruses, such as VSV, possess a fully methylated cap structure, which is required for mRNA stability, efficient translation, and evasion of antiviral innate immunity in host cells. GDP polyribonucleotidyltransferase (PRNTase) is an unconventional mRNA capping enzyme of NNS RNA viruses that is distinct from the eukaryotic mRNA capping enzyme, guanylyltransferase. In this study, we studied the pRNA acceptor specificity of VSV PRNTase using various GDP analogues and identified chemical groups of GDP as

RNA binding specificity of Ebola virus transcription factor VP30.

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Schlereth, Julia; Grünweller, Arnold; Biedenkopf, Nadine; Becker, Stephan; Hartmann, Roland K

2016-09-01

The transcription factor VP30 of the non-segmented RNA negative strand Ebola virus balances viral transcription and replication. Here, we comprehensively studied RNA binding by VP30. Using a novel VP30:RNA electrophoretic mobility shift assay, we tested truncated variants of 2 potential natural RNA substrates of VP30 - the genomic Ebola viral 3'-leader region and its complementary antigenomic counterpart (each ∼155 nt in length) - and a series of other non-viral RNAs. Based on oligonucleotide interference, the major VP30 binding region on the genomic 3'-leader substrate was assigned to the internal expanded single-stranded region (∼ nt 125-80). Best binding to VP30 was obtained with ssRNAs of optimally ∼ 40 nt and mixed base composition; underrepresentation of purines or pyrimidines was tolerated, but homopolymeric sequences impaired binding. A stem-loop structure, particularly at the 3'-end or positioned internally, supports stable binding to VP30. In contrast, dsRNA or RNAs exposing large internal loops flanked by entirely helical arms on both sides are not bound. Introduction of a 5´-Cap(0) structure impaired VP30 binding. Also, ssDNAs bind substantially weaker than isosequential ssRNAs and heparin competes with RNA for binding to VP30, indicating that ribose 2'-hydroxyls and electrostatic contacts of the phosphate groups contribute to the formation of VP30:RNA complexes. Our results indicate a rather relaxed RNA binding specificity of filoviral VP30, which largely differs from that of the functionally related transcription factor of the Paramyxoviridae which binds to ssRNAs as short as 13 nt with a preference for oligo(A) sequences.

LARP6 Meets Collagen mRNA: Specific Regulation of Type I Collagen Expression

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Yujie Zhang

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Type I collagen is the most abundant structural protein in all vertebrates, but its constitutive rate of synthesis is low due to long half-life of the protein (60–70 days. However, several hundred fold increased production of type I collagen is often seen in reparative or reactive fibrosis. The mechanism which is responsible for this dramatic upregulation is complex, including multiple levels of regulation. However, posttranscriptional regulation evidently plays a predominant role. Posttranscriptional regulation comprises processing, transport, stabilization and translation of mRNAs and is executed by RNA binding proteins. There are about 800 RNA binding proteins, but only one, La ribonucleoprotein domain family member 6 (LARP6, is specifically involved in type I collagen regulation. In the 5′untranslated region (5’UTR of mRNAs encoding for type I and type III collagens there is an evolutionally conserved stem-loop (SL structure; this structure is not found in any other mRNA, including any other collagen mRNA. LARP6 binds to the 5′SL in sequence specific manner to regulate stability of collagen mRNAs and their translatability. Here, we will review current understanding of how is LARP6 involved in posttranscriptional regulation of collagen mRNAs. We will also discuss how other proteins recruited by LARP6, including nonmuscle myosin, vimentin, serine threonine kinase receptor associated protein (STRAP, 25 kD FK506 binding protein (FKBP25 and RNA helicase A (RHA, contribute to this process.

Facilitating RNA structure prediction with microarrays.

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Kierzek, Elzbieta; Kierzek, Ryszard; Turner, Douglas H; Catrina, Irina E

2006-01-17

Determining RNA secondary structure is important for understanding structure-function relationships and identifying potential drug targets. This paper reports the use of microarrays with heptamer 2'-O-methyl oligoribonucleotides to probe the secondary structure of an RNA and thereby improve the prediction of that secondary structure. When experimental constraints from hybridization results are added to a free-energy minimization algorithm, the prediction of the secondary structure of Escherichia coli 5S rRNA improves from 27 to 92% of the known canonical base pairs. Optimization of buffer conditions for hybridization and application of 2'-O-methyl-2-thiouridine to enhance binding and improve discrimination between AU and GU pairs are also described. The results suggest that probing RNA with oligonucleotide microarrays can facilitate determination of secondary structure.

Tissue-specific RNA expression marks distant-acting developmental enhancers.

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Han Wu

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Short non-coding transcripts can be transcribed from distant-acting transcriptional enhancer loci, but the prevalence of such enhancer RNAs (eRNAs within the transcriptome, and the association of eRNA expression with tissue-specific enhancer activity in vivo remain poorly understood. Here, we investigated the expression dynamics of tissue-specific non-coding RNAs in embryonic mouse tissues via deep RNA sequencing. Overall, approximately 80% of validated in vivo enhancers show tissue-specific RNA expression that correlates with tissue-specific enhancer activity. Globally, we identified thousands of tissue-specifically transcribed non-coding regions (TSTRs displaying various genomic hallmarks of bona fide enhancers. In transgenic mouse reporter assays, over half of tested TSTRs functioned as enhancers with reproducible activity in the predicted tissue. Together, our results demonstrate that tissue-specific eRNA expression is a common feature of in vivo enhancers, as well as a major source of extragenic transcription, and that eRNA expression signatures can be used to predict tissue-specific enhancers independent of known epigenomic enhancer marks.

Strategies for measuring evolutionary conservation of RNA secondary structures

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Hofacker Ivo L

2008-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Evolutionary conservation of RNA secondary structure is a typical feature of many functional non-coding RNAs. Since almost all of the available methods used for prediction and annotation of non-coding RNA genes rely on this evolutionary signature, accurate measures for structural conservation are essential. Results We systematically assessed the ability of various measures to detect conserved RNA structures in multiple sequence alignments. We tested three existing and eight novel strategies that are based on metrics of folding energies, metrics of single optimal structure predictions, and metrics of structure ensembles. We find that the folding energy based SCI score used in the RNAz program and a simple base-pair distance metric are by far the most accurate. The use of more complex metrics like for example tree editing does not improve performance. A variant of the SCI performed particularly well on highly conserved alignments and is thus a viable alternative when only little evolutionary information is available. Surprisingly, ensemble based methods that, in principle, could benefit from the additional information contained in sub-optimal structures, perform particularly poorly. As a general trend, we observed that methods that include a consensus structure prediction outperformed equivalent methods that only consider pairwise comparisons. Conclusion Structural conservation can be measured accurately with relatively simple and intuitive metrics. They have the potential to form the basis of future RNA gene finders, that face new challenges like finding lineage specific structures or detecting mis-aligned sequences.

Evolution of primary and secondary structures in 5S and 5.8S rRNA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Curtiss, W.C.

1986-01-01

The secondary structure of Bombyx mori 5S rRNA was studied using the sing-strand specific S1 nuclease and the base pair specific cobra venom ribonuclease. The RNA was end-labeled with [ 32 P] at either the 5' or 3' end and sequenced using enzymatic digestion techniques. These enzymatic data coupled with thermodynamic structure prediction were used to generate a secondary structure for 5S rRNA. A computer algorithm has been implemented to aid in the comparison of a large set of homologous RNAs. Eukaryotic 5S rRNA sequences from thirty four diverse species were compared by (1) alignment or the sequences, (2) the positions of substitutions were located with respect to the aligned sequence and secondary structure, and (3) the R-Y model of base stacking was used to study stacking pattern relationships in the structure. Eukaryotic 5S rRNA was found to have significant sequence variation throughout much of the molecule while maintaining a relatively constant secondary structure. A detailed analysis of the sequence and structure variability in each region of the molecule is presented

A Method to Predict the Structure and Stability of RNA/RNA Complexes.

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Xu, Xiaojun; Chen, Shi-Jie

2016-01-01

RNA/RNA interactions are essential for genomic RNA dimerization and regulation of gene expression. Intermolecular loop-loop base pairing is a widespread and functionally important tertiary structure motif in RNA machinery. However, computational prediction of intermolecular loop-loop base pairing is challenged by the entropy and free energy calculation due to the conformational constraint and the intermolecular interactions. In this chapter, we describe a recently developed statistical mechanics-based method for the prediction of RNA/RNA complex structures and stabilities. The method is based on the virtual bond RNA folding model (Vfold). The main emphasis in the method is placed on the evaluation of the entropy and free energy for the loops, especially tertiary kissing loops. The method also uses recursive partition function calculations and two-step screening algorithm for large, complicated structures of RNA/RNA complexes. As case studies, we use the HIV-1 Mal dimer and the siRNA/HIV-1 mutant (T4) to illustrate the method.

Free energy minimization to predict RNA secondary structures and computational RNA design.

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Churkin, Alexander; Weinbrand, Lina; Barash, Danny

2015-01-01

Determining the RNA secondary structure from sequence data by computational predictions is a long-standing problem. Its solution has been approached in two distinctive ways. If a multiple sequence alignment of a collection of homologous sequences is available, the comparative method uses phylogeny to determine conserved base pairs that are more likely to form as a result of billions of years of evolution than by chance. In the case of single sequences, recursive algorithms that compute free energy structures by using empirically derived energy parameters have been developed. This latter approach of RNA folding prediction by energy minimization is widely used to predict RNA secondary structure from sequence. For a significant number of RNA molecules, the secondary structure of the RNA molecule is indicative of its function and its computational prediction by minimizing its free energy is important for its functional analysis. A general method for free energy minimization to predict RNA secondary structures is dynamic programming, although other optimization methods have been developed as well along with empirically derived energy parameters. In this chapter, we introduce and illustrate by examples the approach of free energy minimization to predict RNA secondary structures.

Targeted Regression of Hepatocellular Carcinoma by Cancer-Specific RNA Replacement through MicroRNA Regulation.

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Kim, Juhyun; Won, Ranhui; Ban, Guyee; Ju, Mi Ha; Cho, Kyung Sook; Young Han, Sang; Jeong, Jin-Sook; Lee, Seong-Wook

2015-07-20

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has a high fatality rate and limited therapeutic options with side effects and low efficacy. Here, we proposed a new anti-HCC approach based on cancer-specific post-transcriptional targeting. To this end, trans-splicing ribozymes from Tetrahymena group I intron were developed, which can specifically induce therapeutic gene activity through HCC-specific replacement of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) RNA. To circumvent side effects due to TERT expression in regenerating liver tissue, liver-specific microRNA-regulated ribozymes were constructed by incorporating complementary binding sites for the hepatocyte-selective microRNA-122a (miR-122a), which is down-regulated in HCC. The ribozyme activity in vivo was assessed in mouse models orthotopically implanted with HCC. Systemic administration of adenovirus encoding the developed ribozymes caused efficient anti-cancer effect and the least hepatotoxicity with regulation of ribozyme expression by miR-122a in both xenografted and syngeneic orthotopic murine model of multifocal HCC. Of note, the ribozyme induced local and systemic antitumor immunity, thereby completely suppressing secondary tumor challenge in the syngeneic mouse. The cancer specific trans-splicing ribozyme system, which mediates tissue-specific microRNA-regulated RNA replacement, provides a clinically relevant, safe, and efficient strategy for HCC treatment.

RNA structure alignment by a unit-vector approach.

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Capriotti, Emidio; Marti-Renom, Marc A

2008-08-15

The recent discovery of tiny RNA molecules such as microRNAs and small interfering RNA are transforming the view of RNA as a simple information transfer molecule. Similar to proteins, the native three-dimensional structure of RNA determines its biological activity. Therefore, classifying the current structural space is paramount for functionally annotating RNA molecules. The increasing numbers of RNA structures deposited in the PDB requires more accurate, automatic and benchmarked methods for RNA structure comparison. In this article, we introduce a new algorithm for RNA structure alignment based on a unit-vector approach. The algorithm has been implemented in the SARA program, which results in RNA structure pairwise alignments and their statistical significance. The SARA program has been implemented to be of general applicability even when no secondary structure can be calculated from the RNA structures. A benchmark against the ARTS program using a set of 1275 non-redundant pairwise structure alignments results in inverted approximately 6% extra alignments with at least 50% structurally superposed nucleotides and base pairs. A first attempt to perform RNA automatic functional annotation based on structure alignments indicates that SARA can correctly assign the deepest SCOR classification to >60% of the query structures. The SARA program is freely available through a World Wide Web server http://sgu.bioinfo.cipf.es/services/SARA/. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of hepatitis C virus binds to its coding region RNA stem-loop structure, 5BSL3.2, and its negative strand.

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Kanamori, Hiroshi; Yuhashi, Kazuhito; Ohnishi, Shin; Koike, Kazuhiko; Kodama, Tatsuhiko

2010-05-01

The hepatitis C virus NS5B RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) is a key enzyme involved in viral replication. Interaction between NS5B RdRp and the viral RNA sequence is likely to be an important step in viral RNA replication. The C-terminal half of the NS5B-coding sequence, which contains the important cis-acting replication element, has been identified as an NS5B-binding sequence. In the present study, we confirm the specific binding of NS5B to one of the RNA stem-loop structures in the region, 5BSL3.2. In addition, we show that NS5B binds to the complementary strand of 5BSL3.2 (5BSL3.2N). The bulge structure of 5BSL3.2N was shown to be indispensable for tight binding to NS5B. In vitro RdRp activity was inhibited by 5BSL3.2N, indicating the importance of the RNA element in the polymerization by RdRp. These results suggest the involvement of the RNA stem-loop structure of the negative strand in the replication process.

Crystal structures of two eukaryotic nucleases involved in RNA metabolism

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jonstrup, Anette Thyssen; Midtgaard, Søren Fuglsang; Van, Lan Bich

RNA serves a number of functions in the cell: mRNAs are the carriers of information between gene and protein, tRNAs and rRNAs are involved in the synthesis of proteins, whereas a number of additional RNA species are responsible for other functions in the cell. The quality of the different RNAs...... RNAs. We have solved the structures of two nucleases involved in 3'-5' degradation of RNA; the S. pombe Pop2p and the S. cerevisiae Rrp6p. Pop2p is part of the main cytoplasmatic deadenylation complex in yeast, which also contains the nuclease Ccr4p. Deadenylation, where the poly(A)-tail is removed...... specific transcripts. Here, we present the crystal structure of the S. pombe Pop2p protein to 1.4 Å resolution. The high resolution structure provides a clear picture of the active site architecture. Structural alignment of single nucleotides and poly(A)-oligonucleotides from earlier co-crystal structures...

Computer-Aided Design of RNA Origami Structures.

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Sparvath, Steffen L; Geary, Cody W; Andersen, Ebbe S

2017-01-01

RNA nanostructures can be used as scaffolds to organize, combine, and control molecular functionalities, with great potential for applications in nanomedicine and synthetic biology. The single-stranded RNA origami method allows RNA nanostructures to be folded as they are transcribed by the RNA polymerase. RNA origami structures provide a stable framework that can be decorated with functional RNA elements such as riboswitches, ribozymes, interaction sites, and aptamers for binding small molecules or protein targets. The rich library of RNA structural and functional elements combined with the possibility to attach proteins through aptamer-based binding creates virtually limitless possibilities for constructing advanced RNA-based nanodevices.In this chapter we provide a detailed protocol for the single-stranded RNA origami design method using a simple 2-helix tall structure as an example. The first step involves 3D modeling of a double-crossover between two RNA double helices, followed by decoration with tertiary motifs. The second step deals with the construction of a 2D blueprint describing the secondary structure and sequence constraints that serves as the input for computer programs. In the third step, computer programs are used to design RNA sequences that are compatible with the structure, and the resulting outputs are evaluated and converted into DNA sequences to order.

A comparative method for finding and folding RNA secondary structures within protein-coding regions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Jakob Skou; Meyer, Irmtraud Margret; Forsberg, Roald

2004-01-01

that RNA-DECODER's parameters can be automatically trained to successfully fold known secondary structures within the HCV genome. We scan the genomes of HCV and polio virus for conserved secondary-structure elements, and analyze performance as a function of available evolutionary information. On known...... secondary structures, RNA-DECODER shows a sensitivity similar to the programs MFOLD, PFOLD and RNAALIFOLD. When scanning the entire genomes of HCV and polio virus for structure elements, RNA-DECODER's results indicate a markedly higher specificity than MFOLD, PFOLD and RNAALIFOLD....

Structural basis underlying CAC RNA recognition by the RRM domain of dimeric RNA-binding protein RBPMS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Teplova, Marianna; Farazi, Thalia A.; Tuschl, Thomas; Patel, Dinshaw J.

2015-09-08

RNA-binding protein with multiple splicing (designated RBPMS) is a higher vertebrate mRNA-binding protein containing a single RNA recognition motif (RRM). RBPMS has been shown to be involved in mRNA transport, localization and stability, with key roles in axon guidance, smooth muscle plasticity, as well as regulation of cancer cell proliferation and migration. We report on structure-function studies of the RRM domain of RBPMS bound to a CAC-containing single-stranded RNA. These results provide insights into potential topologies of complexes formed by the RBPMS RRM domain and the tandem CAC repeat binding sites as detected by photoactivatable-ribonucleoside-enhanced crosslinking and immunoprecipitation. These studies establish that the RRM domain of RBPMS forms a symmetrical dimer in the free state, with each monomer binding sequence-specifically to all three nucleotides of a CAC segment in the RNA bound state. Structure-guided mutations within the dimerization and RNA-binding interfaces of RBPMS RRM on RNA complex formation resulted in both disruption of dimerization and a decrease in RNA-binding affinity as observed by size exclusion chromatography and isothermal titration calorimetry. As anticipated from biochemical binding studies, over-expression of dimerization or RNA-binding mutants of Flag-HA-tagged RBPMS were no longer able to track with stress granules in HEK293 cells, thereby documenting the deleterious effects of such mutationsin vivo.

5′-Phospho-RNA Acceptor Specificity of GDP Polyribonucleotidyltransferase of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus in mRNA Capping

Science.gov (United States)

Ogino, Minako

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT The GDP polyribonucleotidyltransferase (PRNTase) domain of the multifunctional L protein of rhabdoviruses, such as vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and rabies virus, catalyzes the transfer of 5′-phospho-RNA (pRNA) from 5′-triphospho-RNA (pppRNA) to GDP via a covalent enzyme-pRNA intermediate to generate a 5′-cap structure (GpppA). Here, using an improved oligo-RNA capping assay with the VSV L protein, we showed that the Michaelis constants for GDP and pppAACAG (VSV mRNA-start sequence) are 0.03 and 0.4 μM, respectively. A competition assay between GDP and GDP analogues in the GpppA formation and pRNA transfer assay using GDP analogues as pRNA acceptors indicated that the PRNTase domain recognizes the C-2-amino group, but not the C-6-oxo group, N-1-hydrogen, or N-7-nitrogen, of GDP for the cap formation. 2,6-Diaminopurine-riboside (DAP), 7-deazaguanosine (7-deaza-G), and 7-methylguanosine (m7G) diphosphates efficiently accepted pRNA, resulting in the formation of DAPpppA, 7-deaza-GpppA, and m7GpppA (cap 0), respectively. Furthermore, either the 2′- or 3′-hydroxyl group of GDP was found to be required for efficient pRNA transfer. A 5′-diphosphate form of antiviral ribavirin weakly inhibited the GpppA formation but did not act as a pRNA acceptor. These results indicate that the PRNTase domain has a unique guanosine-binding mode different from that of eukaryotic mRNA capping enzyme, guanylyltransferase. IMPORTANCE mRNAs of nonsegmented negative-strand (NNS) RNA viruses, such as VSV, possess a fully methylated cap structure, which is required for mRNA stability, efficient translation, and evasion of antiviral innate immunity in host cells. GDP polyribonucleotidyltransferase (PRNTase) is an unconventional mRNA capping enzyme of NNS RNA viruses that is distinct from the eukaryotic mRNA capping enzyme, guanylyltransferase. In this study, we studied the pRNA acceptor specificity of VSV PRNTase using various GDP analogues and identified chemical groups

Evolution of the RNase P RNA structural domain in Leptospira spp.

Science.gov (United States)

Ravishankar, Vigneshwaran; Ahmed, Ahmed; Sivagnanam, Ulaganathan; Muthuraman, Krishnaraja; Karthikaichamy, Anbarasu; Wilson, Herald A; Devendran, Ajay; Hartskeerl, Rudy A; Raj, Stephen M L

2014-12-01

We have employed the RNase P RNA (RPR) gene, which is present as single copy in chromosome I of Leptospira spp. to investigate the phylogeny of structural domains present in the RNA subunit of the tRNA processing enzyme, RNase P. RPR gene sequences of 150 strains derived from NCBI database along with sequences determined from 8 reference strains were examined to fathom strain specific structural differences present in leptospiral RPR. Sequence variations in the RPR gene impacted on the configuration of loops, stems and bulges found in the RPR highlighting species and strain specific structural motifs. In vitro transcribed leptospiral RPR ribozymes are demonstrated to process pre-tRNA into mature tRNA in consonance with the positioning of Leptospira in the taxonomic domain of bacteria. RPR sequence datasets used to construct a phylogenetic tree exemplified the segregation of strains into their respective lineages with a (re)speciation of strain SH 9 to Leptospira borgpetersenii, strains Fiocruz LV 3954 and Fiocruz LV 4135 to Leptospira santarosai, strain CBC 613 to Leptospira kirschneri and strain HAI 1536 to Leptospira noguchii. Furthermore, it allowed characterization of an isolate P2653, presumptively characterized as either serovar Hebdomadis, Kremastos or Longnan to Leptospira weilii, serovar Longnan. Copyright © 2014 Institut Pasteur. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Double-stranded RNA interferes in a sequence-specific manner with the infection of representative members of the two viroid families

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carbonell, Alberto; Martinez de Alba, Angel-Emilio; Flores, Ricardo; Gago, Selma

2008-01-01

Infection by viroids, non-protein-coding circular RNAs, occurs with the accumulation of 21-24 nt viroid-derived small RNAs (vd-sRNAs) with characteristic properties of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) associated to RNA silencing. The vd-sRNAs most likely derive from dicer-like (DCL) enzymes acting on viroid-specific dsRNA, the key elicitor of RNA silencing, or on the highly structured genomic RNA. Previously, viral dsRNAs delivered mechanically or agroinoculated have been shown to interfere with virus infection in a sequence-specific manner. Here, we report similar results with members of the two families of nuclear- and chloroplast-replicating viroids. Moreover, homologous vd-sRNAs co-delivered mechanically also interfered with one of the viroids examined. The interference was sequence-specific, temperature-dependent and, in some cases, also dependent on the dose of the co-inoculated dsRNA or vd-sRNAs. The sequence-specific nature of these effects suggests the involvement of the RNA induced silencing complex (RISC), which provides sequence specificity to RNA silencing machinery. Therefore, viroid titer in natural infections might be regulated by the concerted action of DCL and RISC. Viroids could have evolved their secondary structure as a compromise between resistance to DCL and RISC, which act preferentially against RNAs with compact and relaxed secondary structures, respectively. In addition, compartmentation, association with proteins or active replication might also help viroids to elude their host RNA silencing machinery

Nucleocapsid-Independent Specific Viral RNA Packaging via Viral Envelope Protein and Viral RNA Signal

OpenAIRE

Narayanan, Krishna; Chen, Chun-Jen; Maeda, Junko; Makino, Shinji

2003-01-01

For any of the enveloped RNA viruses studied to date, recognition of a specific RNA packaging signal by the virus's nucleocapsid (N) protein is the first step described in the process of viral RNA packaging. In the murine coronavirus a selective interaction between the viral transmembrane envelope protein M and the viral ribonucleoprotein complex, composed of N protein and viral RNA containing a short cis-acting RNA element, the packaging signal, determines the selective RNA packaging into vi...

Computational strategies for the automated design of RNA nanoscale structures from building blocks using NanoTiler.

Science.gov (United States)

Bindewald, Eckart; Grunewald, Calvin; Boyle, Brett; O'Connor, Mary; Shapiro, Bruce A

2008-10-01

One approach to designing RNA nanoscale structures is to use known RNA structural motifs such as junctions, kissing loops or bulges and to construct a molecular model by connecting these building blocks with helical struts. We previously developed an algorithm for detecting internal loops, junctions and kissing loops in RNA structures. Here we present algorithms for automating or assisting many of the steps that are involved in creating RNA structures from building blocks: (1) assembling building blocks into nanostructures using either a combinatorial search or constraint satisfaction; (2) optimizing RNA 3D ring structures to improve ring closure; (3) sequence optimisation; (4) creating a unique non-degenerate RNA topology descriptor. This effectively creates a computational pipeline for generating molecular models of RNA nanostructures and more specifically RNA ring structures with optimized sequences from RNA building blocks. We show several examples of how the algorithms can be utilized to generate RNA tecto-shapes.

Computational strategies for the automated design of RNA nanoscale structures from building blocks using NanoTiler☆

Science.gov (United States)

Bindewald, Eckart; Grunewald, Calvin; Boyle, Brett; O’Connor, Mary; Shapiro, Bruce A.

2013-01-01

One approach to designing RNA nanoscale structures is to use known RNA structural motifs such as junctions, kissing loops or bulges and to construct a molecular model by connecting these building blocks with helical struts. We previously developed an algorithm for detecting internal loops, junctions and kissing loops in RNA structures. Here we present algorithms for automating or assisting many of the steps that are involved in creating RNA structures from building blocks: (1) assembling building blocks into nanostructures using either a combinatorial search or constraint satisfaction; (2) optimizing RNA 3D ring structures to improve ring closure; (3) sequence optimisation; (4) creating a unique non-degenerate RNA topology descriptor. This effectively creates a computational pipeline for generating molecular models of RNA nanostructures and more specifically RNA ring structures with optimized sequences from RNA building blocks. We show several examples of how the algorithms can be utilized to generate RNA tecto-shapes. PMID:18838281

antaRNA: ant colony-based RNA sequence design.

Science.gov (United States)

Kleinkauf, Robert; Mann, Martin; Backofen, Rolf

2015-10-01

RNA sequence design is studied at least as long as the classical folding problem. Although for the latter the functional fold of an RNA molecule is to be found ,: inverse folding tries to identify RNA sequences that fold into a function-specific target structure. In combination with RNA-based biotechnology and synthetic biology ,: reliable RNA sequence design becomes a crucial step to generate novel biochemical components. In this article ,: the computational tool antaRNA is presented. It is capable of compiling RNA sequences for a given structure that comply in addition with an adjustable full range objective GC-content distribution ,: specific sequence constraints and additional fuzzy structure constraints. antaRNA applies ant colony optimization meta-heuristics and its superior performance is shown on a biological datasets. http://www.bioinf.uni-freiburg.de/Software/antaRNA CONTACT: backofen@informatik.uni-freiburg.de Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press.

A Viral RNA Structural Element Alters Host Recognition of Nonself RNA

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hyde, J. L.; Gardner, C. L.; Kimura, T.; White, J. P.; Liu, G.; Trobaugh, D. W.; Huang, C.; Tonelli, M.; Paessler, S.; Takeda, K.; Klimstra, W. B.; Amarasinghe, G. K.; Diamond, M. S.

2014-01-30

Although interferon (IFN) signaling induces genes that limit viral infection, many pathogenic viruses overcome this host response. As an example, 2'-O methylation of the 5' cap of viral RNA subverts mammalian antiviral responses by evading restriction of Ifit1, an IFN-stimulated gene that regulates protein synthesis. However, alphaviruses replicate efficiently in cells expressing Ifit1 even though their genomic RNA has a 5' cap lacking 2'-O methylation. We show that pathogenic alphaviruses use secondary structural motifs within the 5' untranslated region (UTR) of their RNA to alter Ifit1 binding and function. Mutations within the 5'-UTR affecting RNA structural elements enabled restriction by or antagonism of Ifit1 in vitro and in vivo. These results identify an evasion mechanism by which viruses use RNA structural motifs to avoid immune restriction.

Exact calculation of loop formation probability identifies folding motifs in RNA secondary structures

Science.gov (United States)

Sloma, Michael F.; Mathews, David H.

2016-01-01

RNA secondary structure prediction is widely used to analyze RNA sequences. In an RNA partition function calculation, free energy nearest neighbor parameters are used in a dynamic programming algorithm to estimate statistical properties of the secondary structure ensemble. Previously, partition functions have largely been used to estimate the probability that a given pair of nucleotides form a base pair, the conditional stacking probability, the accessibility to binding of a continuous stretch of nucleotides, or a representative sample of RNA structures. Here it is demonstrated that an RNA partition function can also be used to calculate the exact probability of formation of hairpin loops, internal loops, bulge loops, or multibranch loops at a given position. This calculation can also be used to estimate the probability of formation of specific helices. Benchmarking on a set of RNA sequences with known secondary structures indicated that loops that were calculated to be more probable were more likely to be present in the known structure than less probable loops. Furthermore, highly probable loops are more likely to be in the known structure than the set of loops predicted in the lowest free energy structures. PMID:27852924

DCJ-RNA - double cut and join for RNA secondary structures.

Science.gov (United States)

Badr, Ghada H; Al-Aqel, Haifa A

2017-10-16

Genome rearrangements are essential processes for evolution and are responsible for existing varieties of genome architectures. Many studies have been conducted to obtain an algorithm that identifies the minimum number of inversions that are necessary to transform one genome into another; this allows for genome sequence representation in polynomial time. Studies have not been conducted on the topic of rearranging a genome when it is represented as a secondary structure. Unlike sequences, the secondary structure preserves the functionality of the genome. Sequences can be different, but they all share the same structure and, therefore, the same functionality. This paper proposes a double cut and join for RNA secondary structures (DCJ-RNA) algorithm. This algorithm allows for the description of evolutionary scenarios that are based on secondary structures rather than sequences. The main aim of this paper is to suggest an efficient algorithm that can help researchers compare two ribonucleic acid (RNA) secondary structures based on rearrangement operations. The results, which are based on real datasets, show that the algorithm is able to count the minimum number of rearrangement operations, as well as to report an optimum scenario that can increase the similarity between the two structures. The algorithm calculates the distance between structures and reports a scenario based on the minimum rearrangement operations required to make the given structure similar to the other. DCJ-RNA can also be used to measure the distance between the two structures. This can help identify the common functionalities between different species.

Neuron-specific RNA interference using lentiviral vectors

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Troels Tolstrup; Marion, Ingrid van; Hasholt, Lis

2009-01-01

BACKGROUND: Viral vectors have been used in several different settings for the delivery of small hairpin (sh) RNAs. However, most vectors have utilized ubiquitously-expressing polymerase (pol) III promoters to drive expression of the hairpin as a result of the strict requirement for precise...... transcriptional initiation and termination. Recently, pol II promoters have been used to construct vectors for RNA interference (RNAi). By embedding the shRNA into a micro RNA-context (miRNA) the endogenous miRNA processing machinery is exploited to achieve the mature synthetic miRNA (smiRNA), thereby expanding...... the possible promoter choices and eventually allowing cell type specific down-regulation of target genes. METHODS: In the present study, we constructed lentiviral vectors expressing smiRNAs under the control of pol II promoters to knockdown gene expression in cell culture and in the brain. RESULTS: We...

Initiation of translation in bacteria by a structured eukaryotic IRES RNA.

Science.gov (United States)

Colussi, Timothy M; Costantino, David A; Zhu, Jianyu; Donohue, John Paul; Korostelev, Andrei A; Jaafar, Zane A; Plank, Terra-Dawn M; Noller, Harry F; Kieft, Jeffrey S

2015-03-05

The central dogma of gene expression (DNA to RNA to protein) is universal, but in different domains of life there are fundamental mechanistic differences within this pathway. For example, the canonical molecular signals used to initiate protein synthesis in bacteria and eukaryotes are mutually exclusive. However, the core structures and conformational dynamics of ribosomes that are responsible for the translation steps that take place after initiation are ancient and conserved across the domains of life. We wanted to explore whether an undiscovered RNA-based signal might be able to use these conserved features, bypassing mechanisms specific to each domain of life, and initiate protein synthesis in both bacteria and eukaryotes. Although structured internal ribosome entry site (IRES) RNAs can manipulate ribosomes to initiate translation in eukaryotic cells, an analogous RNA structure-based mechanism has not been observed in bacteria. Here we report our discovery that a eukaryotic viral IRES can initiate translation in live bacteria. We solved the crystal structure of this IRES bound to a bacterial ribosome to 3.8 Å resolution, revealing that despite differences between bacterial and eukaryotic ribosomes this IRES binds directly to both and occupies the space normally used by transfer RNAs. Initiation in both bacteria and eukaryotes depends on the structure of the IRES RNA, but in bacteria this RNA uses a different mechanism that includes a form of ribosome repositioning after initial recruitment. This IRES RNA bridges billions of years of evolutionary divergence and provides an example of an RNA structure-based translation initiation signal capable of operating in two domains of life.

Identifying functional cancer-specific miRNA-mRNA interactions in testicular germ cell tumor.

Science.gov (United States)

Sedaghat, Nafiseh; Fathy, Mahmood; Modarressi, Mohammad Hossein; Shojaie, Ali

2016-09-07

Testicular cancer is the most common cancer in men aged between 15 and 35 and more than 90% of testicular neoplasms are originated at germ cells. Recent research has shown the impact of microRNAs (miRNAs) in different types of cancer, including testicular germ cell tumor (TGCT). MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs which affect the development and progression of cancer cells by binding to mRNAs and regulating their expressions. The identification of functional miRNA-mRNA interactions in cancers, i.e. those that alter the expression of genes in cancer cells, can help delineate post-regulatory mechanisms and may lead to new treatments to control the progression of cancer. A number of sequence-based methods have been developed to predict miRNA-mRNA interactions based on the complementarity of sequences. While necessary, sequence complementarity is, however, not sufficient for presence of functional interactions. Alternative methods have thus been developed to refine the sequence-based interactions using concurrent expression profiles of miRNAs and mRNAs. This study aims to find functional cancer-specific miRNA-mRNA interactions in TGCT. To this end, the sequence-based predicted interactions are first refined using an ensemble learning method, based on two well-known methods of learning miRNA-mRNA interactions, namely, TaLasso and GenMiR++. Additional functional analyses were then used to identify a subset of interactions to be most likely functional and specific to TGCT. The final list of 13 miRNA-mRNA interactions can be potential targets for identifying TGCT-specific interactions and future laboratory experiments to develop new therapies. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ensemble-based prediction of RNA secondary structures.

Science.gov (United States)

Aghaeepour, Nima; Hoos, Holger H

2013-04-24

Accurate structure prediction methods play an important role for the understanding of RNA function. Energy-based, pseudoknot-free secondary structure prediction is one of the most widely used and versatile approaches, and improved methods for this task have received much attention over the past five years. Despite the impressive progress that as been achieved in this area, existing evaluations of the prediction accuracy achieved by various algorithms do not provide a comprehensive, statistically sound assessment. Furthermore, while there is increasing evidence that no prediction algorithm consistently outperforms all others, no work has been done to exploit the complementary strengths of multiple approaches. In this work, we present two contributions to the area of RNA secondary structure prediction. Firstly, we use state-of-the-art, resampling-based statistical methods together with a previously published and increasingly widely used dataset of high-quality RNA structures to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of existing RNA secondary structure prediction procedures. The results from this evaluation clarify the performance relationship between ten well-known existing energy-based pseudoknot-free RNA secondary structure prediction methods and clearly demonstrate the progress that has been achieved in recent years. Secondly, we introduce AveRNA, a generic and powerful method for combining a set of existing secondary structure prediction procedures into an ensemble-based method that achieves significantly higher prediction accuracies than obtained from any of its component procedures. Our new, ensemble-based method, AveRNA, improves the state of the art for energy-based, pseudoknot-free RNA secondary structure prediction by exploiting the complementary strengths of multiple existing prediction procedures, as demonstrated using a state-of-the-art statistical resampling approach. In addition, AveRNA allows an intuitive and effective control of the trade-off between

RNA-Pareto: interactive analysis of Pareto-optimal RNA sequence-structure alignments.

Science.gov (United States)

Schnattinger, Thomas; Schöning, Uwe; Marchfelder, Anita; Kestler, Hans A

2013-12-01

Incorporating secondary structure information into the alignment process improves the quality of RNA sequence alignments. Instead of using fixed weighting parameters, sequence and structure components can be treated as different objectives and optimized simultaneously. The result is not a single, but a Pareto-set of equally optimal solutions, which all represent different possible weighting parameters. We now provide the interactive graphical software tool RNA-Pareto, which allows a direct inspection of all feasible results to the pairwise RNA sequence-structure alignment problem and greatly facilitates the exploration of the optimal solution set.

Thermodynamic heuristics with case-based reasoning: combined insights for RNA pseudoknot secondary structure.

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Khatib, Ra'ed M; Rashid, Nur'Aini Abdul; Abdullah, Rosni

2011-08-01

The secondary structure of RNA pseudoknots has been extensively inferred and scrutinized by computational approaches. Experimental methods for determining RNA structure are time consuming and tedious; therefore, predictive computational approaches are required. Predicting the most accurate and energy-stable pseudoknot RNA secondary structure has been proven to be an NP-hard problem. In this paper, a new RNA folding approach, termed MSeeker, is presented; it includes KnotSeeker (a heuristic method) and Mfold (a thermodynamic algorithm). The global optimization of this thermodynamic heuristic approach was further enhanced by using a case-based reasoning technique as a local optimization method. MSeeker is a proposed algorithm for predicting RNA pseudoknot structure from individual sequences, especially long ones. This research demonstrates that MSeeker improves the sensitivity and specificity of existing RNA pseudoknot structure predictions. The performance and structural results from this proposed method were evaluated against seven other state-of-the-art pseudoknot prediction methods. The MSeeker method had better sensitivity than the DotKnot, FlexStem, HotKnots, pknotsRG, ILM, NUPACK and pknotsRE methods, with 79% of the predicted pseudoknot base-pairs being correct.

RNAcontext: a new method for learning the sequence and structure binding preferences of RNA-binding proteins.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hilal Kazan

2010-07-01

Full Text Available Metazoan genomes encode hundreds of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs. These proteins regulate post-transcriptional gene expression and have critical roles in numerous cellular processes including mRNA splicing, export, stability and translation. Despite their ubiquity and importance, the binding preferences for most RBPs are not well characterized. In vitro and in vivo studies, using affinity selection-based approaches, have successfully identified RNA sequence associated with specific RBPs; however, it is difficult to infer RBP sequence and structural preferences without specifically designed motif finding methods. In this study, we introduce a new motif-finding method, RNAcontext, designed to elucidate RBP-specific sequence and structural preferences with greater accuracy than existing approaches. We evaluated RNAcontext on recently published in vitro and in vivo RNA affinity selected data and demonstrate that RNAcontext identifies known binding preferences for several control proteins including HuR, PTB, and Vts1p and predicts new RNA structure preferences for SF2/ASF, RBM4, FUSIP1 and SLM2. The predicted preferences for SF2/ASF are consistent with its recently reported in vivo binding sites. RNAcontext is an accurate and efficient motif finding method ideally suited for using large-scale RNA-binding affinity datasets to determine the relative binding preferences of RBPs for a wide range of RNA sequences and structures.

Self containment, a property of modular RNA structures, distinguishes microRNAs.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miler T Lee

2008-08-01

Full Text Available RNA molecules will tend to adopt a folded conformation through the pairing of bases on a single strand; the resulting so-called secondary structure is critical to the function of many types of RNA. The secondary structure of a particular substring of functional RNA may depend on its surrounding sequence. Yet, some RNAs such as microRNAs retain their specific structures during biogenesis, which involves extraction of the substructure from a larger structural context, while other functional RNAs may be composed of a fusion of independent substructures. Such observations raise the question of whether particular functional RNA substructures may be selected for invariance of secondary structure to their surrounding nucleotide context. We define the property of self containment to be the tendency for an RNA sequence to robustly adopt the same optimal secondary structure regardless of whether it exists in isolation or is a substring of a longer sequence of arbitrary nucleotide content. We measured degree of self containment using a scoring method we call the self-containment index and found that miRNA stem loops exhibit high self containment, consistent with the requirement for structural invariance imposed by the miRNA biogenesis pathway, while most other structured RNAs do not. Further analysis revealed a trend toward higher self containment among clustered and conserved miRNAs, suggesting that high self containment may be a characteristic of novel miRNAs acquiring new genomic contexts. We found that miRNAs display significantly enhanced self containment compared to other functional RNAs, but we also found a trend toward natural selection for self containment in most functional RNA classes. We suggest that self containment arises out of selection for robustness against perturbations, invariance during biogenesis, and modular composition of structural function. Analysis of self containment will be important for both annotation and design of functional

RNA 3D modules in genome-wide predictions of RNA 2D structure

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Theis, Corinna; Zirbel, Craig L; Zu Siederdissen, Christian Höner

2015-01-01

. These modules can, for example, occur inside structural elements which in RNA 2D predictions appear as internal loops. Hence one question is if the use of such RNA 3D information can improve the prediction accuracy of RNA secondary structure at a genome-wide level. Here, we use RNAz in combination with 3D......Recent experimental and computational progress has revealed a large potential for RNA structure in the genome. This has been driven by computational strategies that exploit multiple genomes of related organisms to identify common sequences and secondary structures. However, these computational...... approaches have two main challenges: they are computationally expensive and they have a relatively high false discovery rate (FDR). Simultaneously, RNA 3D structure analysis has revealed modules composed of non-canonical base pairs which occur in non-homologous positions, apparently by independent evolution...

The specificity of long noncoding RNA expression.

Science.gov (United States)

Gloss, Brian S; Dinger, Marcel E

2016-01-01

Over the last decade, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as a fundamental molecular class whose members play pivotal roles in the regulation of the genome. The observation of pervasive transcription of mammalian genomes in the early 2000s sparked a revolution in the understanding of information flow in eukaryotic cells and the incredible flexibility and dynamic nature of the transcriptome. As a molecular class, distinct loci yielding lncRNAs are set to outnumber those yielding mRNAs. However, like many important discoveries, the road leading to uncovering this diverse class of molecules that act through a remarkable repertoire of mechanisms, was not a straight one. The same characteristic that most distinguishes lncRNAs from mRNAs, i.e. their developmental-stage, tissue-, and cell-specific expression, was one of the major impediments to their discovery and recognition as potentially functional regulatory molecules. With growing numbers of lncRNAs being assigned to biological functions, the specificity of lncRNA expression is now increasingly recognized as a characteristic that imbues lncRNAs with great potential as biomarkers and for the development of highly targeted therapeutics. Here we review the history of lncRNA research and how technological advances and insight into biological complexity have gone hand-in-hand in shaping this revolution. We anticipate that as increasing numbers of these molecules, often described as the dark matter of the genome, are characterized and the structure-function relationship of lncRNAs becomes better understood, it may ultimately be feasible to decipher what these non-(protein)-coding genes encode. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Clues to long noncoding RNA taxonomy1, edited by Dr. Tetsuro Hirose and Dr. Shinichi Nakagawa. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

RNA secondary structure prediction using soft computing.

Science.gov (United States)

Ray, Shubhra Sankar; Pal, Sankar K

2013-01-01

Prediction of RNA structure is invaluable in creating new drugs and understanding genetic diseases. Several deterministic algorithms and soft computing-based techniques have been developed for more than a decade to determine the structure from a known RNA sequence. Soft computing gained importance with the need to get approximate solutions for RNA sequences by considering the issues related with kinetic effects, cotranscriptional folding, and estimation of certain energy parameters. A brief description of some of the soft computing-based techniques, developed for RNA secondary structure prediction, is presented along with their relevance. The basic concepts of RNA and its different structural elements like helix, bulge, hairpin loop, internal loop, and multiloop are described. These are followed by different methodologies, employing genetic algorithms, artificial neural networks, and fuzzy logic. The role of various metaheuristics, like simulated annealing, particle swarm optimization, ant colony optimization, and tabu search is also discussed. A relative comparison among different techniques, in predicting 12 known RNA secondary structures, is presented, as an example. Future challenging issues are then mentioned.

Selective small-molecule inhibition of an RNA structural element

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Howe, John A.; Wang, Hao; Fischmann, Thierry O.; Balibar, Carl J.; Xiao, Li; Galgoci, Andrew M.; Malinverni, Juliana C.; Mayhood, Todd; Villafania, Artjohn; Nahvi, Ali; Murgolo, Nicholas; Barbieri, Christopher M.; Mann, Paul A.; Carr, Donna; Xia, Ellen; Zuck, Paul; Riley, Dan; Painter, Ronald E.; Walker, Scott S.; Sherborne, Brad; de Jesus, Reynalda; Pan, Weidong; Plotkin, Michael A.; Wu, Jin; Rindgen, Diane; Cummings, John; Garlisi, Charles G.; Zhang, Rumin; Sheth, Payal R.; Gill, Charles J.; Tang, Haifeng; Roemer , Terry (Merck)

2015-09-30

Riboswitches are non-coding RNA structures located in messenger RNAs that bind endogenous ligands, such as a specific metabolite or ion, to regulate gene expression. As such, riboswitches serve as a novel, yet largely unexploited, class of emerging drug targets. Demonstrating this potential, however, has proven difficult and is restricted to structurally similar antimetabolites and semi-synthetic analogues of their cognate ligand, thus greatly restricting the chemical space and selectivity sought for such inhibitors. Here we report the discovery and characterization of ribocil, a highly selective chemical modulator of bacterial riboflavin riboswitches, which was identified in a phenotypic screen and acts as a structurally distinct synthetic mimic of the natural ligand, flavin mononucleotide, to repress riboswitch-mediated ribB gene expression and inhibit bacterial cell growth. Our findings indicate that non-coding RNA structural elements may be more broadly targeted by synthetic small molecules than previously expected.

A folding algorithm for extended RNA secondary structures.

Science.gov (United States)

Höner zu Siederdissen, Christian; Bernhart, Stephan H; Stadler, Peter F; Hofacker, Ivo L

2011-07-01

RNA secondary structure contains many non-canonical base pairs of different pair families. Successful prediction of these structural features leads to improved secondary structures with applications in tertiary structure prediction and simultaneous folding and alignment. We present a theoretical model capturing both RNA pair families and extended secondary structure motifs with shared nucleotides using 2-diagrams. We accompany this model with a number of programs for parameter optimization and structure prediction. All sources (optimization routines, RNA folding, RNA evaluation, extended secondary structure visualization) are published under the GPLv3 and available at www.tbi.univie.ac.at/software/rnawolf/.

Site-Specific Covalent Conjugation of Modified mRNA by tRNA Guanine Transglycosylase.

Science.gov (United States)

Ehret, Fabian; Zhou, Cun Yu; Alexander, Seth C; Zhang, Dongyang; Devaraj, Neal K

2018-03-05

Modified mRNA (mod-mRNA) has recently been widely studied as the form of RNA useful for therapeutic applications due to its high stability and lowered immune response. Herein, we extend the scope of the recently established RNA-TAG (transglycosylation at guanosine) methodology, a novel approach for genetically encoded site-specific labeling of large mRNA transcripts, by employing mod-mRNA as substrate. As a proof of concept, we covalently attached a fluorescent probe to mCherry encoding mod-mRNA transcripts bearing 5-methylcytidine and/or pseudouridine substitutions with high labeling efficiencies. To provide a versatile labeling methodology with a wide range of possible applications, we employed a two-step strategy for functionalization of the mod-mRNA to highlight the therapeutic potential of this new methodology. We envision that this novel and facile labeling methodology of mod-RNA will have great potential in decorating both coding and noncoding therapeutic RNAs with a variety of diagnostic and functional moieties.

DMS-MaPseq for genome-wide or targeted RNA structure probing in vivo.

Science.gov (United States)

Zubradt, Meghan; Gupta, Paromita; Persad, Sitara; Lambowitz, Alan M; Weissman, Jonathan S; Rouskin, Silvi

2017-01-01

Coupling of structure-specific in vivo chemical modification to next-generation sequencing is transforming RNA secondary structure studies in living cells. The dominant strategy for detecting in vivo chemical modifications uses reverse transcriptase truncation products, which introduce biases and necessitate population-average assessments of RNA structure. Here we present dimethyl sulfate (DMS) mutational profiling with sequencing (DMS-MaPseq), which encodes DMS modifications as mismatches using a thermostable group II intron reverse transcriptase. DMS-MaPseq yields a high signal-to-noise ratio, can report multiple structural features per molecule, and allows both genome-wide studies and focused in vivo investigations of even low-abundance RNAs. We apply DMS-MaPseq for the first analysis of RNA structure within an animal tissue and to identify a functional structure involved in noncanonical translation initiation. Additionally, we use DMS-MaPseq to compare the in vivo structure of pre-mRNAs with their mature isoforms. These applications illustrate DMS-MaPseq's capacity to dramatically expand in vivo analysis of RNA structure.

Retroviral Gag protein-RNA interactions: Implications for specific genomic RNA packaging and virion assembly.

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Olson, Erik D; Musier-Forsyth, Karin

2018-03-31

Retroviral Gag proteins are responsible for coordinating many aspects of virion assembly. Gag possesses two distinct nucleic acid binding domains, matrix (MA) and nucleocapsid (NC). One of the critical functions of Gag is to specifically recognize, bind, and package the retroviral genomic RNA (gRNA) into assembling virions. Gag interactions with cellular RNAs have also been shown to regulate aspects of assembly. Recent results have shed light on the role of MA and NC domain interactions with nucleic acids, and how they jointly function to ensure packaging of the retroviral gRNA. Here, we will review the literature regarding RNA interactions with NC, MA, as well as overall mechanisms employed by Gag to interact with RNA. The discussion focuses on human immunodeficiency virus type-1, but other retroviruses will also be discussed. A model is presented combining all of the available data summarizing the various factors and layers of selection Gag employs to ensure specific gRNA packaging and correct virion assembly. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Integrating chemical footprinting data into RNA secondary structure prediction.

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Kourosh Zarringhalam

Full Text Available Chemical and enzymatic footprinting experiments, such as shape (selective 2'-hydroxyl acylation analyzed by primer extension, yield important information about RNA secondary structure. Indeed, since the [Formula: see text]-hydroxyl is reactive at flexible (loop regions, but unreactive at base-paired regions, shape yields quantitative data about which RNA nucleotides are base-paired. Recently, low error rates in secondary structure prediction have been reported for three RNAs of moderate size, by including base stacking pseudo-energy terms derived from shape data into the computation of minimum free energy secondary structure. Here, we describe a novel method, RNAsc (RNA soft constraints, which includes pseudo-energy terms for each nucleotide position, rather than only for base stacking positions. We prove that RNAsc is self-consistent, in the sense that the nucleotide-specific probabilities of being unpaired in the low energy Boltzmann ensemble always become more closely correlated with the input shape data after application of RNAsc. From this mathematical perspective, the secondary structure predicted by RNAsc should be 'correct', in as much as the shape data is 'correct'. We benchmark RNAsc against the previously mentioned method for eight RNAs, for which both shape data and native structures are known, to find the same accuracy in 7 out of 8 cases, and an improvement of 25% in one case. Furthermore, we present what appears to be the first direct comparison of shape data and in-line probing data, by comparing yeast asp-tRNA shape data from the literature with data from in-line probing experiments we have recently performed. With respect to several criteria, we find that shape data appear to be more robust than in-line probing data, at least in the case of asp-tRNA.

SimRNA: a coarse-grained method for RNA folding simulations and 3D structure prediction.

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Boniecki, Michal J; Lach, Grzegorz; Dawson, Wayne K; Tomala, Konrad; Lukasz, Pawel; Soltysinski, Tomasz; Rother, Kristian M; Bujnicki, Janusz M

2016-04-20

RNA molecules play fundamental roles in cellular processes. Their function and interactions with other biomolecules are dependent on the ability to form complex three-dimensional (3D) structures. However, experimental determination of RNA 3D structures is laborious and challenging, and therefore, the majority of known RNAs remain structurally uncharacterized. Here, we present SimRNA: a new method for computational RNA 3D structure prediction, which uses a coarse-grained representation, relies on the Monte Carlo method for sampling the conformational space, and employs a statistical potential to approximate the energy and identify conformations that correspond to biologically relevant structures. SimRNA can fold RNA molecules using only sequence information, and, on established test sequences, it recapitulates secondary structure with high accuracy, including correct prediction of pseudoknots. For modeling of complex 3D structures, it can use additional restraints, derived from experimental or computational analyses, including information about secondary structure and/or long-range contacts. SimRNA also can be used to analyze conformational landscapes and identify potential alternative structures. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Fatgraph models of RNA structure

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Huang Fenix

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In this review paper we discuss fatgraphs as a conceptual framework for RNA structures. We discuss various notions of coarse-grained RNA structures and relate them to fatgraphs.We motivate and discuss the main intuition behind the fatgraph model and showcase its applicability to canonical as well as noncanonical base pairs. Recent discoveries regarding novel recursions of pseudoknotted (pk configurations as well as their translation into context-free grammars for pk-structures are discussed. This is shown to allow for extending the concept of partition functions of sequences w.r.t. a fixed structure having non-crossing arcs to pk-structures. We discuss minimum free energy folding of pk-structures and combine these above results outlining how to obtain an inverse folding algorithm for PK structures.

Regulatory effects of cotranscriptional RNA structure formation and transitions.

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Liu, Sheng-Rui; Hu, Chun-Gen; Zhang, Jin-Zhi

2016-09-01

RNAs, which play significant roles in many fundamental biological processes of life, fold into sophisticated and precise structures. RNA folding is a dynamic and intricate process, which conformation transition of coding and noncoding RNAs form the primary elements of genetic regulation. The cellular environment contains various intrinsic and extrinsic factors that potentially affect RNA folding in vivo, and experimental and theoretical evidence increasingly indicates that the highly flexible features of the RNA structure are affected by these factors, which include the flanking sequence context, physiochemical conditions, cis RNA-RNA interactions, and RNA interactions with other molecules. Furthermore, distinct RNA structures have been identified that govern almost all steps of biological processes in cells, including transcriptional activation and termination, transcriptional mutagenesis, 5'-capping, splicing, 3'-polyadenylation, mRNA export and localization, and translation. Here, we briefly summarize the dynamic and complex features of RNA folding along with a wide variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that affect RNA folding. We then provide several examples to elaborate RNA structure-mediated regulation at the transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels. Finally, we illustrate the regulatory roles of RNA structure and discuss advances pertaining to RNA structure in plants. WIREs RNA 2016, 7:562-574. doi: 10.1002/wrna.1350 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Structure of the RNA m5C Methyltransferase YebU from Escherichia coli Reveals a C-terminal RNA-recruiting PUA Domain

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hallberg, B. Martin; Ericsson, Ulrika B.; Johnson, Kenneth A

2006-01-01

potential that differ from other RNA-MTase structures, suggesting that YebU interacts with its RNA target in a different manner. Docking of YebU onto the 30 S subunit indicates that the PUA and MTase domains make several contacts with 16 S rRNA as well as with the ribosomal protein S12. The ribosomal...... protein interactions would explain why the assembled 30 S subunit, and not naked 16 S rRNA, is the preferred substrate for YebU....... by X-ray crystallography, and we present a molecular model for how YebU specifically recognizes, binds and methylates its ribosomal substrate. The YebU protein has an N-terminal SAM-binding catalytic domain with structural similarity to the equivalent domains in several other m(5)C RNA MTases including...

ncRNA consensus secondary structure derivation using grammar strings.

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Achawanantakun, Rujira; Sun, Yanni; Takyar, Seyedeh Shohreh

2011-04-01

Many noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) function through both their sequences and secondary structures. Thus, secondary structure derivation is an important issue in today's RNA research. The state-of-the-art structure annotation tools are based on comparative analysis, which derives consensus structure of homologous ncRNAs. Despite promising results from existing ncRNA aligning and consensus structure derivation tools, there is a need for more efficient and accurate ncRNA secondary structure modeling and alignment methods. In this work, we introduce a consensus structure derivation approach based on grammar string, a novel ncRNA secondary structure representation that encodes an ncRNA's sequence and secondary structure in the parameter space of a context-free grammar (CFG) and a full RNA grammar including pseudoknots. Being a string defined on a special alphabet constructed from a grammar, grammar string converts ncRNA alignment into sequence alignment. We derive consensus secondary structures from hundreds of ncRNA families from BraliBase 2.1 and 25 families containing pseudoknots using grammar string alignment. Our experiments have shown that grammar string-based structure derivation competes favorably in consensus structure quality with Murlet and RNASampler. Source code and experimental data are available at http://www.cse.msu.edu/~yannisun/grammar-string.

On the importance of cotranscriptional RNA structure formation

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Lai, Daniel; Proctor, Jeff R.; Meyer, Irmtraud M.

2013-01-01

The expression of genes, both coding and noncoding, can be significantly influenced by RNA structural features of their corresponding transcripts. There is by now mounting experimental and some theoretical evidence that structure formation in vivo starts during transcription and that this cotranscriptional folding determines the functional RNA structural features that are being formed. Several decades of research in bioinformatics have resulted in a wide range of computational methods for predicting RNA secondary structures. Almost all state-of-the-art methods in terms of prediction accuracy, however, completely ignore the process of structure formation and focus exclusively on the final RNA structure. This review hopes to bridge this gap. We summarize the existing evidence for cotranscriptional folding and then review the different, currently used strategies for RNA secondary-structure prediction. Finally, we propose a range of ideas on how state-of-the-art methods could be potentially improved by explicitly capturing the process of cotranscriptional structure formation. PMID:24131802

Base pairing and structural insights into the 5-formylcytosine in RNA duplex

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Wang, Rui; Luo, Zhipu; He, Kaizhang; Delaney, Michael O.; Chen, Doris; Sheng, Jia

2016-01-01

Abstract 5-Formylcytidine (f5C), a previously discovered natural nucleotide in the mitochondrial tRNA of many species including human, has been recently detected as the oxidative product of 5-methylcytidine (m5C) through 5-hydroxymethylcytidine (hm5C) in total RNA of mammalian cells. The discovery indicated that these cytosine derivatives in RNA might also play important epigenetic roles similar as in DNA, which has been intensively investigated in the past few years. In this paper, we studied the base pairing specificity of f5C in different RNA duplex contexts. We found that the 5-formyl group could increase duplex thermal stability and enhance base pairing specificity. We present three high-resolution crystal structures of an octamer RNA duplex [5′-GUA(f5C)GUAC-3′]2 that have been solved under three crystallization conditions with different buffers and pH values. Our results showed that the 5-formyl group is located in the same plane as the cytosine base and forms an intra-residue hydrogen bond with the amino group in the N4 position. In addition, this modification increases the base stacking between the f5C and the neighboring bases while not causing significant global and local structure perturbations. This work provides insights into the effects of 5-formylcytosine on RNA duplex. PMID:27079978

Probing of RNA structures in a positive sense RNA virus reveals selection pressures for structural elements

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Watters, Kyle E; Choudhary, Krishna; Aviran, Sharon; Perry, Keith L

2018-01-01

Abstract In single stranded (+)-sense RNA viruses, RNA structural elements (SEs) play essential roles in the infection process from replication to encapsidation. Using selective 2′-hydroxyl acylation analyzed by primer extension sequencing (SHAPE-Seq) and covariation analysis, we explore the structural features of the third genome segment of cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), RNA3 (2216 nt), both in vitro and in plant cell lysates. Comparing SHAPE-Seq and covariation analysis results revealed multiple SEs in the coat protein open reading frame and 3′ untranslated region. Four of these SEs were mutated and serially passaged in Nicotiana tabacum plants to identify biologically selected changes to the original mutated sequences. After passaging, loop mutants showed partial reversion to their wild-type sequence and SEs that were structurally disrupted by mutations were restored to wild-type-like structures via synonymous mutations in planta. These results support the existence and selection of virus open reading frame SEs in the host organism and provide a framework for further studies on the role of RNA structure in viral infection. Additionally, this work demonstrates the applicability of high-throughput chemical probing in plant cell lysates and presents a new method for calculating SHAPE reactivities from overlapping reverse transcriptase priming sites. PMID:29294088

Protein Structure and the Sequential Structure of mRNA

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brunak, Søren; Engelbrecht, Jacob

1996-01-01

entries in the Brookhaven Protein Data Bank produced 719 protein chains with matching mRNA sequence, amino acid sequence, and secondary structure assignment, By neural network analysis, we found strong signals in mRNA sequence regions surrounding helices and sheets, These signals do not originate from......A direct comparison of experimentally determined protein structures and their corresponding protein coding mRNA sequences has been performed, We examine whether real world data support the hypothesis that clusters of rare codons correlate with the location of structural units in the resulting...... protein, The degeneracy of the genetic code allows for a biased selection of codons which may control the translational rate of the ribosome, and may thus in vivo have a catalyzing effect on the folding of the polypeptide chain, A complete search for GenBank nucleotide sequences coding for structural...

Structural and functional basis for RNA cleavage by Ire1

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Stroud Robert M

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The unfolded protein response (UPR controls the protein folding capacity of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER. Central to this signaling pathway is the ER-resident bifunctional transmembrane kinase/endoribonuclease Ire1. The endoribonuclease (RNase domain of Ire1 initiates a non-conventional mRNA splicing reaction, leading to the production of a transcription factor that controls UPR target genes. The mRNA splicing reaction is an obligatory step of Ire1 signaling, yet its mechanism has remained poorly understood due to the absence of substrate-bound crystal structures of Ire1, the lack of structural similarity between Ire1 and other RNases, and a scarcity of quantitative enzymological data. Here, we experimentally define the active site of Ire1 RNase and quantitatively evaluate the contribution of the key active site residues to catalysis. Results This analysis and two new crystal structures suggest that Ire1 RNase uses histidine H1061 and tyrosine Y1043 as the general acid-general base pair contributing ≥ 7.6 kcal/mol and 1.4 kcal/mol to transition state stabilization, respectively, and asparagine N1057 and arginine R1056 for coordination of the scissile phosphate. Investigation of the stem-loop recognition revealed that additionally to the stem-loops derived from the classic Ire1 substrates HAC1 and Xbp1 mRNA, Ire1 can site-specifically and rapidly cleave anticodon stem-loop (ASL of unmodified tRNAPhe, extending known substrate specificity of Ire1 RNase. Conclusions Our data define the catalytic center of Ire1 RNase and suggest a mechanism of RNA cleavage: each RNase monomer apparently contains a separate catalytic apparatus for RNA cleavage, whereas two RNase subunits contribute to RNA stem-loop docking. Conservation of the key residues among Ire1 homologues suggests that the mechanism elucidated here for yeast Ire1 applies to Ire1 in metazoan cells, and to the only known Ire1 homologue RNase L.

Identification of RNA molecules by specific enzyme digestion and mass spectrometry: software for and implementation of RNA mass mapping

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Matthiesen, Rune; Kirpekar, Finn

2009-01-01

The idea of identifying or characterizing an RNA molecule based on a mass spectrum of specifically generated RNA fragments has been used in various forms for well over a decade. We have developed software-named RRM for 'RNA mass mapping'-which can search whole prokaryotic genomes or RNA FASTA...... sequence databases to identify the origin of a given RNA based on a mass spectrum of RNA fragments. As input, the program uses the masses of specific RNase cleavage of the RNA under investigation. RNase T1 digestion is used here as a demonstration of the usability of the method for RNA identification....... The concept for identification is that the masses of the digestion products constitute a specific fingerprint, which characterize the given RNA. The search algorithm is based on the same principles as those used in peptide mass fingerprinting, but has here been extended to work for both RNA sequence databases...

Combinatorial design of a nanobody that specifically targets structured RNAs.

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Cawez, F; Duray, E; Hu, Y; Vandenameele, J; Romão, E; Vincke, C; Dumoulin, M; Galleni, M; Muyldermans, S; Vandevenne, M

2018-04-11

Recent advances in transcriptome sequencing and analysis have revealed the complexity of the human genome. The majority (≈ 98%) of cellular transcripts is not translated into proteins and represents a vast, unchartered world of functional non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). Most of them adopt a well-defined 3D structure to achieve their biological functions. However, only very few RNA structures are currently available which reflects the challenges associated with RNA crystallization. Nevertheless, these structures would represent a critical step in understanding functions of ncRNAs and their molecular mechanisms in the cell. The overall goal of this study is to develop an innovative and versatile tool to facilitate the functional study and crystallization of structured RNAs (stRNAs). In this work, we have engineered an antibody fragment from camelid heavy-chain antibody (nanobody) able to specifically bind with low nanomolar affinity to stRNA while no binding could be detected for single-stranded DNA/RNA, double-stranded DNA/RNA or a negatively charged protein. However, this nanobody recognizes different and non-related stRNAs, this observation suggests that it binds to an epitope shared by these stRNAs. Finally, our data also show that the binding of the nanobody doesn't alter the secondary structure content of the stRNA as well as its unfolding/refolding processes during heat treatment. This work constitutes a successful proof-of-concept demonstrating that nanobodies can be engineered to recognize RNA-related epitopes. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

High-throughput determination of RNA structure by proximity ligation.

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Ramani, Vijay; Qiu, Ruolan; Shendure, Jay

2015-09-01

We present an unbiased method to globally resolve RNA structures through pairwise contact measurements between interacting regions. RNA proximity ligation (RPL) uses proximity ligation of native RNA followed by deep sequencing to yield chimeric reads with ligation junctions in the vicinity of structurally proximate bases. We apply RPL in both baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and human cells and generate contact probability maps for ribosomal and other abundant RNAs, including yeast snoRNAs, the RNA subunit of the signal recognition particle and the yeast U2 spliceosomal RNA homolog. RPL measurements correlate with established secondary structures for these RNA molecules, including stem-loop structures and long-range pseudoknots. We anticipate that RPL will complement the current repertoire of computational and experimental approaches in enabling the high-throughput determination of secondary and tertiary RNA structures.

A semi-supervised learning approach for RNA secondary structure prediction.

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Yonemoto, Haruka; Asai, Kiyoshi; Hamada, Michiaki

2015-08-01

RNA secondary structure prediction is a key technology in RNA bioinformatics. Most algorithms for RNA secondary structure prediction use probabilistic models, in which the model parameters are trained with reliable RNA secondary structures. Because of the difficulty of determining RNA secondary structures by experimental procedures, such as NMR or X-ray crystal structural analyses, there are still many RNA sequences that could be useful for training whose secondary structures have not been experimentally determined. In this paper, we introduce a novel semi-supervised learning approach for training parameters in a probabilistic model of RNA secondary structures in which we employ not only RNA sequences with annotated secondary structures but also ones with unknown secondary structures. Our model is based on a hybrid of generative (stochastic context-free grammars) and discriminative models (conditional random fields) that has been successfully applied to natural language processing. Computational experiments indicate that the accuracy of secondary structure prediction is improved by incorporating RNA sequences with unknown secondary structures into training. To our knowledge, this is the first study of a semi-supervised learning approach for RNA secondary structure prediction. This technique will be useful when the number of reliable structures is limited. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Model for an RNA tertiary interaction from the structure of an intermolecular complex between a GAAA tetraloop and an RNA helix.

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Pley, H W; Flaherty, K M; McKay, D B

1994-11-03

In large structured RNAs, RNA hairpins in which the strands of the duplex stem are connected by a tetraloop of the consensus sequence 5'-GNRA (where N is any nucleotide, and R is either G or A) are unusually frequent. In group I introns there is a covariation in sequence between nucleotides in the third and fourth positions of the loop with specific distant base pairs in putative RNA duplex stems: GNAA loops correlate with successive 5'-C-C.G-C base pairs in stems, whereas GNGA loops correlate with 5'-C-U.G-A. This has led to the suggestion that GNRA tetraloops may be involved in specific long-range tertiary interactions, with each A in position 3 or 4 of the loop interacting with a C-G base pair in the duplex, and G in position 3 interacting with a U-A base pair. This idea is supported experimentally for the GAAA loop of the P5b extension of the group I intron of Tetrahymena thermophila and the L9 GUGA terminal loop of the td intron of bacteriophage T4 (ref. 4). NMR has revealed the overall structure of the tetraloop for 12-nucleotide hairpins with GCAA and GAAA loops and models have been proposed for the interaction of GNRA tetraloops with base pairs in the minor groove of A-form RNA. Here we describe the crystal structure of an intermolecular complex between a GAAA tetraloop and an RNA helix. The interactions we observe correlate with the specificity of GNRA tetraloops inferred from phylogenetic studies, suggesting that this complex is a legitimate model for intramolecular tertiary interactions mediated by GNRA tetraloops in large structured RNAs.

A small RNA activates CFA synthase by isoform-specific mRNA stabilization.

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Fröhlich, Kathrin Sophie; Papenfort, Kai; Fekete, Agnes; Vogel, Jörg

2013-11-13

Small RNAs use a diversity of well-characterized mechanisms to repress mRNAs, but how they activate gene expression at the mRNA level remains not well understood. The predominant activation mechanism of Hfq-associated small RNAs has been translational control whereby base pairing with the target prevents the formation of an intrinsic inhibitory structure in the mRNA and promotes translation initiation. Here, we report a translation-independent mechanism whereby the small RNA RydC selectively activates the longer of two isoforms of cfa mRNA (encoding cyclopropane fatty acid synthase) in Salmonella enterica. Target activation is achieved through seed pairing of the pseudoknot-exposed, conserved 5' end of RydC to an upstream region of the cfa mRNA. The seed pairing stabilizes the messenger, likely by interfering directly with RNase E-mediated decay in the 5' untranslated region. Intriguingly, this mechanism is generic such that the activation is equally achieved by seed pairing of unrelated small RNAs, suggesting that this mechanism may be utilized in the design of RNA-controlled synthetic circuits. Physiologically, RydC is the first small RNA known to regulate membrane stability.

Impact of target mRNA structure on siRNA silencing efficiency: A large-scale study.

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Gredell, Joseph A; Berger, Angela K; Walton, S Patrick

2008-07-01

The selection of active siRNAs is generally based on identifying siRNAs with certain sequence and structural properties. However, the efficiency of RNA interference has also been shown to depend on the structure of the target mRNA, primarily through studies using exogenous transcripts with well-defined secondary structures in the vicinity of the target sequence. While these studies provide a means for examining the impact of target sequence and structure independently, the predicted secondary structures for these transcripts are often not reflective of structures that form in full-length, native mRNAs where interactions can occur between relatively remote segments of the mRNAs. Here, using a combination of experimental results and analysis of a large dataset, we demonstrate that the accessibility of certain local target structures on the mRNA is an important determinant in the gene silencing ability of siRNAs. siRNAs targeting the enhanced green fluorescent protein were chosen using a minimal siRNA selection algorithm followed by classification based on the predicted minimum free energy structures of the target transcripts. Transfection into HeLa and HepG2 cells revealed that siRNAs targeting regions of the mRNA predicted to have unpaired 5'- and 3'-ends resulted in greater gene silencing than regions predicted to have other types of secondary structure. These results were confirmed by analysis of gene silencing data from previously published siRNAs, which showed that mRNA target regions unpaired at either the 5'-end or 3'-end were silenced, on average, approximately 10% more strongly than target regions unpaired in the center or primarily paired throughout. We found this effect to be independent of the structure of the siRNA guide strand. Taken together, these results suggest minimal requirements for nucleation of hybridization between the siRNA guide strand and mRNA and that both mRNA and guide strand structure should be considered when choosing candidate si

A phase transition in energy-filtered RNA secondary structures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Han, Hillary Siwei; reidys, Christian

2012-01-01

In this paper we study the effect of energy parameters on minimum free energy (mfe) RNA secondary structures. Employing a simplified combinatorial energy model, that is only dependent on the diagram representation and that is not sequence specific, we prove the following dichotomy result. Mfe...... this phase transition from a discrete limit to a central limit distribution and subsequently put our result into the context of quantifying the effect of sparsification of the folding of these respective mfe-structures. We show that the sparsification of realistic mfe-structures leads to a constant time...

RNAstructure: software for RNA secondary structure prediction and analysis.

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Reuter, Jessica S; Mathews, David H

2010-03-15

To understand an RNA sequence's mechanism of action, the structure must be known. Furthermore, target RNA structure is an important consideration in the design of small interfering RNAs and antisense DNA oligonucleotides. RNA secondary structure prediction, using thermodynamics, can be used to develop hypotheses about the structure of an RNA sequence. RNAstructure is a software package for RNA secondary structure prediction and analysis. It uses thermodynamics and utilizes the most recent set of nearest neighbor parameters from the Turner group. It includes methods for secondary structure prediction (using several algorithms), prediction of base pair probabilities, bimolecular structure prediction, and prediction of a structure common to two sequences. This contribution describes new extensions to the package, including a library of C++ classes for incorporation into other programs, a user-friendly graphical user interface written in JAVA, and new Unix-style text interfaces. The original graphical user interface for Microsoft Windows is still maintained. The extensions to RNAstructure serve to make RNA secondary structure prediction user-friendly. The package is available for download from the Mathews lab homepage at http://rna.urmc.rochester.edu/RNAstructure.html.

RNA Thermodynamic Structural Entropy.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juan Antonio Garcia-Martin

Full Text Available Conformational entropy for atomic-level, three dimensional biomolecules is known experimentally to play an important role in protein-ligand discrimination, yet reliable computation of entropy remains a difficult problem. Here we describe the first two accurate and efficient algorithms to compute the conformational entropy for RNA secondary structures, with respect to the Turner energy model, where free energy parameters are determined from UV absorption experiments. An algorithm to compute the derivational entropy for RNA secondary structures had previously been introduced, using stochastic context free grammars (SCFGs. However, the numerical value of derivational entropy depends heavily on the chosen context free grammar and on the training set used to estimate rule probabilities. Using data from the Rfam database, we determine that both of our thermodynamic methods, which agree in numerical value, are substantially faster than the SCFG method. Thermodynamic structural entropy is much smaller than derivational entropy, and the correlation between length-normalized thermodynamic entropy and derivational entropy is moderately weak to poor. In applications, we plot the structural entropy as a function of temperature for known thermoswitches, such as the repression of heat shock gene expression (ROSE element, we determine that the correlation between hammerhead ribozyme cleavage activity and total free energy is improved by including an additional free energy term arising from conformational entropy, and we plot the structural entropy of windows of the HIV-1 genome. Our software RNAentropy can compute structural entropy for any user-specified temperature, and supports both the Turner'99 and Turner'04 energy parameters. It follows that RNAentropy is state-of-the-art software to compute RNA secondary structure conformational entropy. Source code is available at https://github.com/clotelab/RNAentropy/; a full web server is available at http

RNA Thermodynamic Structural Entropy.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia-Martin, Juan Antonio; Clote, Peter

2015-01-01

Conformational entropy for atomic-level, three dimensional biomolecules is known experimentally to play an important role in protein-ligand discrimination, yet reliable computation of entropy remains a difficult problem. Here we describe the first two accurate and efficient algorithms to compute the conformational entropy for RNA secondary structures, with respect to the Turner energy model, where free energy parameters are determined from UV absorption experiments. An algorithm to compute the derivational entropy for RNA secondary structures had previously been introduced, using stochastic context free grammars (SCFGs). However, the numerical value of derivational entropy depends heavily on the chosen context free grammar and on the training set used to estimate rule probabilities. Using data from the Rfam database, we determine that both of our thermodynamic methods, which agree in numerical value, are substantially faster than the SCFG method. Thermodynamic structural entropy is much smaller than derivational entropy, and the correlation between length-normalized thermodynamic entropy and derivational entropy is moderately weak to poor. In applications, we plot the structural entropy as a function of temperature for known thermoswitches, such as the repression of heat shock gene expression (ROSE) element, we determine that the correlation between hammerhead ribozyme cleavage activity and total free energy is improved by including an additional free energy term arising from conformational entropy, and we plot the structural entropy of windows of the HIV-1 genome. Our software RNAentropy can compute structural entropy for any user-specified temperature, and supports both the Turner'99 and Turner'04 energy parameters. It follows that RNAentropy is state-of-the-art software to compute RNA secondary structure conformational entropy. Source code is available at https://github.com/clotelab/RNAentropy/; a full web server is available at http

Methyltransferase That Modifies Guanine 966 of the 16 S rRNA: FUNCTIONAL IDENTIFICATION AND TERTIARY STRUCTURE*

Science.gov (United States)

Lesnyak, Dmitry V.; Osipiuk, Jerzy; Skarina, Tatiana; Sergiev, Petr V.; Bogdanov, Alexey A.; Edwards, Aled; Savchenko, Alexei; Joachimiak, Andrzej; Dontsova, Olga A.

2010-01-01

N2-Methylguanine 966 is located in the loop of Escherichia coli 16 S rRNA helix 31, forming a part of the P-site tRNA-binding pocket. We found yhhF to be a gene encoding for m2G966 specific 16 S rRNA methyltransferase. Disruption of the yhhF gene by kanamycin resistance marker leads to a loss of modification at G966. The modification could be rescued by expression of recombinant protein from the plasmid carrying the yhhF gene. Moreover, purified m2G966 methyltransferase, in the presence of S-adenosylomethionine (AdoMet), is able to methylate 30 S ribosomal subunits that were purified from yhhF knock-out strain in vitro. The methylation is specific for G966 base of the 16 S rRNA. The m2G966 methyltransferase was crystallized, and its structure has been determined and refined to 2.05 Å. The structure closely resembles RsmC rRNA methyltransferase, specific for m2G1207 of the 16 S rRNA. Structural comparisons and analysis of the enzyme active site suggest modes for binding AdoMet and rRNA to m2G966 methyltransferase. Based on the experimental data and current nomenclature the protein expressed from the yhhF gene was renamed to RsmD. A model for interaction of RsmD with ribosome has been proposed. PMID:17189261

Methyltransferase that modifies guanine 966 of the 16 S rRNA: functional identification and tertiary structure.

Science.gov (United States)

Lesnyak, Dmitry V; Osipiuk, Jerzy; Skarina, Tatiana; Sergiev, Petr V; Bogdanov, Alexey A; Edwards, Aled; Savchenko, Alexei; Joachimiak, Andrzej; Dontsova, Olga A

2007-02-23

N(2)-Methylguanine 966 is located in the loop of Escherichia coli 16 S rRNA helix 31, forming a part of the P-site tRNA-binding pocket. We found yhhF to be a gene encoding for m(2)G966 specific 16 S rRNA methyltransferase. Disruption of the yhhF gene by kanamycin resistance marker leads to a loss of modification at G966. The modification could be rescued by expression of recombinant protein from the plasmid carrying the yhhF gene. Moreover, purified m(2)G966 methyltransferase, in the presence of S-adenosylomethionine (AdoMet), is able to methylate 30 S ribosomal subunits that were purified from yhhF knock-out strain in vitro. The methylation is specific for G966 base of the 16 S rRNA. The m(2)G966 methyltransferase was crystallized, and its structure has been determined and refined to 2.05A(.) The structure closely resembles RsmC rRNA methyltransferase, specific for m(2)G1207 of the 16 S rRNA. Structural comparisons and analysis of the enzyme active site suggest modes for binding AdoMet and rRNA to m(2)G966 methyltransferase. Based on the experimental data and current nomenclature the protein expressed from the yhhF gene was renamed to RsmD. A model for interaction of RsmD with ribosome has been proposed.

Branched RNA: A New Architecture for RNA Interference

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Anna Aviñó

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Branched RNAs with two and four strands were synthesized. These structures were used to obtain branched siRNA. The branched siRNA duplexes had similar inhibitory capacity as those of unmodified siRNA duplexes, as deduced from gene silencing experiments of the TNF-α protein. Branched RNAs are considered novel structures for siRNA technology, and they provide an innovative tool for specific gene inhibition. As the method described here is compatible with most RNA modifications described to date, these compounds may be further functionalized to obtain more potent siRNA derivatives and can be attached to suitable delivery systems.

RNA Packing Specificity and Folding during Assembly of the Bacteriophage MS2

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Ottar Rolfsson

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Using a combination of biochemistry, mass spectrometry, NMR spectroscopy and cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM, we have been able to show that quasi-equivalent conformer switching in the coat protein (CP of an RNA bacteriophage (MS2 is controlled by a sequence-specific RNA–protein interaction. The RNA component of this complex is an RNA stem-loop encompassing just 19 nts from the phage genomic RNA, which is 3569 nts in length. This binding results in the conversion of a CP dimer from a symmetrical conformation to an asymmetric one. Only when both symmetrical and asymmetrical dimers are present in solution is assembly of the T = 3 phage capsid efficient. This implies that the conformers, we have characterized by NMR correspond to the two distinct quasi-equivalent conformers seen in the 3D structure of the virion. An icosahedrally-averaged single particle cryo-EM reconstruction of the wild-type phage (to ∼9 Å resolution has revealed icosahedrally ordered density encompassing up to 90% of the single-stranded RNA genome. The RNA is seen with a novel arrangement of two concentric shells, with connections between them along the 5-fold symmetry axes. RNA in the outer shell interacts with each of the 90 CP dimers in the T = 3 capsid and although the density is icosahedrally averaged, there appears to be a different average contact at the different quasi-equivalent protein dimers: precisely the result that would be expected if protein conformer switching is RNA-mediated throughout the assembly pathway. This unprecedented RNA structure provides new constraints for models of viral assembly and we describe experiments aimed at probing these. Together, these results suggest that viral genomic RNA folding is an important factor in efficient assembly, and further suggest that RNAs that could sequester viral CPs but not fold appropriately could act as potent inhibitors of viral assembly.

LNA-modified oligonucleotides mediate specific inhibition of microRNA function

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ørom, Ulf Andersson; Kauppinen, Sakari; Lund, Anders H

2006-01-01

microRNAs are short, endogenous non-coding RNAs that act as post-transcriptional modulators of gene expression. Important functions for microRNAs have been found in the regulation of development, cellular proliferation and differentiation, while perturbed miRNA expression patterns have been...... observed in many human cancers. Here we present a method for specific inhibition of miRNA function through interaction with LNA-modified antisense oligonucleotides and report the specificity of this application. We show that LNA-modified oligonucleotides can inhibit exogenously introduced miRNAs with high...... specificity using a heterologous reporter assay, and furthermore demonstrate their ability to inhibit an endogenous miRNA in Drosophila melanogaster cells, leading to up-regulation of the cognate target protein. The method shows stoichiometric and reliable inhibition of the targeted miRNA and can thus...

RNA folding: structure prediction, folding kinetics and ion electrostatics.

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Tan, Zhijie; Zhang, Wenbing; Shi, Yazhou; Wang, Fenghua

2015-01-01

Beyond the "traditional" functions such as gene storage, transport and protein synthesis, recent discoveries reveal that RNAs have important "new" biological functions including the RNA silence and gene regulation of riboswitch. Such functions of noncoding RNAs are strongly coupled to the RNA structures and proper structure change, which naturally leads to the RNA folding problem including structure prediction and folding kinetics. Due to the polyanionic nature of RNAs, RNA folding structure, stability and kinetics are strongly coupled to the ion condition of solution. The main focus of this chapter is to review the recent progress in the three major aspects in RNA folding problem: structure prediction, folding kinetics and ion electrostatics. This chapter will introduce both the recent experimental and theoretical progress, while emphasize the theoretical modelling on the three aspects in RNA folding.

Crystal structure of the bacteriophage Qβ coat protein in complex with the RNA operator of the replicase gene.

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Rumnieks, Janis; Tars, Kaspars

2014-03-06

The coat proteins of single-stranded RNA bacteriophages specifically recognize and bind to a hairpin structure in their genome at the beginning of the replicase gene. The interaction serves to repress the synthesis of the replicase enzyme late in infection and contributes to the specific encapsidation of phage RNA. While this mechanism is conserved throughout the Leviviridae family, the coat protein and operator sequences from different phages show remarkable variation, serving as prime examples for the co-evolution of protein and RNA structure. To better understand the protein-RNA interactions in this virus family, we have determined the three-dimensional structure of the coat protein from bacteriophage Qβ bound to its cognate translational operator. The RNA binding mode of Qβ coat protein shares several features with that of the widely studied phage MS2, but only one nucleotide base in the hairpin loop makes sequence-specific contacts with the protein. Unlike in other RNA phages, the Qβ coat protein does not utilize an adenine-recognition pocket for binding a bulged adenine base in the hairpin stem but instead uses a stacking interaction with a tyrosine side chain to accommodate the base. The extended loop between β strands E and F of Qβ coat protein makes contacts with the lower part of the RNA stem, explaining the greater length dependence of the RNA helix for optimal binding to the protein. Consequently, the complex structure allows the proposal of a mechanism by which the Qβ coat protein recognizes and discriminates in favor of its cognate RNA. © 2013.

Bi-objective integer programming for RNA secondary structure prediction with pseudoknots.

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Legendre, Audrey; Angel, Eric; Tahi, Fariza

2018-01-15

RNA structure prediction is an important field in bioinformatics, and numerous methods and tools have been proposed. Pseudoknots are specific motifs of RNA secondary structures that are difficult to predict. Almost all existing methods are based on a single model and return one solution, often missing the real structure. An alternative approach would be to combine different models and return a (small) set of solutions, maximizing its quality and diversity in order to increase the probability that it contains the real structure. We propose here an original method for predicting RNA secondary structures with pseudoknots, based on integer programming. We developed a generic bi-objective integer programming algorithm allowing to return optimal and sub-optimal solutions optimizing simultaneously two models. This algorithm was then applied to the combination of two known models of RNA secondary structure prediction, namely MEA and MFE. The resulting tool, called BiokoP, is compared with the other methods in the literature. The results show that the best solution (structure with the highest F 1 -score) is, in most cases, given by BiokoP. Moreover, the results of BiokoP are homogeneous, regardless of the pseudoknot type or the presence or not of pseudoknots. Indeed, the F 1 -scores are always higher than 70% for any number of solutions returned. The results obtained by BiokoP show that combining the MEA and the MFE models, as well as returning several optimal and several sub-optimal solutions, allow to improve the prediction of secondary structures. One perspective of our work is to combine better mono-criterion models, in particular to combine a model based on the comparative approach with the MEA and the MFE models. This leads to develop in the future a new multi-objective algorithm to combine more than two models. BiokoP is available on the EvryRNA platform: https://EvryRNA.ibisc.univ-evry.fr .

A Two-Way Street: Regulatory Interplay between RNA Polymerase and Nascent RNA Structure.

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Zhang, Jinwei; Landick, Robert

2016-04-01

The vectorial (5'-to-3' at varying velocity) synthesis of RNA by cellular RNA polymerases (RNAPs) creates a rugged kinetic landscape, demarcated by frequent, sometimes long-lived, pauses. In addition to myriad gene-regulatory roles, these pauses temporally and spatially program the co-transcriptional, hierarchical folding of biologically active RNAs. Conversely, these RNA structures, which form inside or near the RNA exit channel, interact with the polymerase and adjacent protein factors to influence RNA synthesis by modulating pausing, termination, antitermination, and slippage. Here, we review the evolutionary origin, mechanistic underpinnings, and regulatory consequences of this interplay between RNAP and nascent RNA structure. We categorize and rationalize the extensive linkage between the transcriptional machinery and its product, and provide a framework for future studies. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

miRNA-like duplexes as RNAi triggers with improved specificity

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Juan G. Betancur

2012-07-01

Full Text Available siRNA duplexes, the most common triggers of RNA interference, are first loaded into an Argonaute (Ago protein and then undergo unwinding via passenger strand cleavage, which requires the slicer activity of the Ago protein. In mammals, only Ago2 out of the four Ago proteins possesses such slicer activity. In contrast, miRNA/miRNA* duplexes often contain central mismatches that prevent slicer-dependent unwinding. Instead, mismatches in specific regions (seed and 3´-mid regions promote efficient slicer-independent unwinding by any of the four mammalian Ago proteins. Both slicer-dependent and slicer-independent unwinding mechanisms produce guide-containing RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC, which silences target mRNAs by cleavage, translational repression, and/or deadenylation that leads to mRNA decay. In this review, we summarize our current knowledge of the RISC assembly pathways, and describe a simple method to rationally design artificial miRNA/miRNA*-like duplexes and highlight its benefits to reduce the unwanted off-target effects without compromising the specific target silencing activity.

Accelerated probabilistic inference of RNA structure evolution

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Holmes Ian

2005-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Pairwise stochastic context-free grammars (Pair SCFGs are powerful tools for evolutionary analysis of RNA, including simultaneous RNA sequence alignment and secondary structure prediction, but the associated algorithms are intensive in both CPU and memory usage. The same problem is faced by other RNA alignment-and-folding algorithms based on Sankoff's 1985 algorithm. It is therefore desirable to constrain such algorithms, by pre-processing the sequences and using this first pass to limit the range of structures and/or alignments that can be considered. Results We demonstrate how flexible classes of constraint can be imposed, greatly reducing the computational costs while maintaining a high quality of structural homology prediction. Any score-attributed context-free grammar (e.g. energy-based scoring schemes, or conditionally normalized Pair SCFGs is amenable to this treatment. It is now possible to combine independent structural and alignment constraints of unprecedented general flexibility in Pair SCFG alignment algorithms. We outline several applications to the bioinformatics of RNA sequence and structure, including Waterman-Eggert N-best alignments and progressive multiple alignment. We evaluate the performance of the algorithm on test examples from the RFAM database. Conclusion A program, Stemloc, that implements these algorithms for efficient RNA sequence alignment and structure prediction is available under the GNU General Public License.

High-throughput SHAPE analysis reveals structures in HIV-1 genomic RNA strongly conserved across distinct biological states.

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Kevin A Wilkinson

2008-04-01

Full Text Available Replication and pathogenesis of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV is tightly linked to the structure of its RNA genome, but genome structure in infectious virions is poorly understood. We invent high-throughput SHAPE (selective 2'-hydroxyl acylation analyzed by primer extension technology, which uses many of the same tools as DNA sequencing, to quantify RNA backbone flexibility at single-nucleotide resolution and from which robust structural information can be immediately derived. We analyze the structure of HIV-1 genomic RNA in four biologically instructive states, including the authentic viral genome inside native particles. Remarkably, given the large number of plausible local structures, the first 10% of the HIV-1 genome exists in a single, predominant conformation in all four states. We also discover that noncoding regions functioning in a regulatory role have significantly lower (p-value < 0.0001 SHAPE reactivities, and hence more structure, than do viral coding regions that function as the template for protein synthesis. By directly monitoring protein binding inside virions, we identify the RNA recognition motif for the viral nucleocapsid protein. Seven structurally homologous binding sites occur in a well-defined domain in the genome, consistent with a role in directing specific packaging of genomic RNA into nascent virions. In addition, we identify two distinct motifs that are targets for the duplex destabilizing activity of this same protein. The nucleocapsid protein destabilizes local HIV-1 RNA structure in ways likely to facilitate initial movement both of the retroviral reverse transcriptase from its tRNA primer and of the ribosome in coding regions. Each of the three nucleocapsid interaction motifs falls in a specific genome domain, indicating that local protein interactions can be organized by the long-range architecture of an RNA. High-throughput SHAPE reveals a comprehensive view of HIV-1 RNA genome structure, and further

Organism-specific rRNA capture system for application in next-generation sequencing.

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Sai-Kam Li

Full Text Available RNA-sequencing is a powerful tool in studying RNomics. However, the highly abundance of ribosomal RNAs (rRNA and transfer RNA (tRNA have predominated in the sequencing reads, thereby hindering the study of lowly expressed genes. Therefore, rRNA depletion prior to sequencing is often performed in order to preserve the subtle alteration in gene expression especially those at relatively low expression levels. One of the commercially available methods is to use DNA or RNA probes to hybridize to the target RNAs. However, there is always a concern with the non-specific binding and unintended removal of messenger RNA (mRNA when the same set of probes is applied to different organisms. The degree of such unintended mRNA removal varies among organisms due to organism-specific genomic variation. We developed a computer-based method to design probes to deplete rRNA in an organism-specific manner. Based on the computation results, biotinylated-RNA-probes were produced by in vitro transcription and were used to perform rRNA depletion with subtractive hybridization. We demonstrated that the designed probes of 16S rRNAs and 23S rRNAs can efficiently remove rRNAs from Mycobacterium smegmatis. In comparison with a commercial subtractive hybridization-based rRNA removal kit, using organism-specific probes is better in preserving the RNA integrity and abundance. We believe the computer-based design approach can be used as a generic method in preparing RNA of any organisms for next-generation sequencing, particularly for the transcriptome analysis of microbes.

Visualization of RNA structure models within the Integrative Genomics Viewer.

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Busan, Steven; Weeks, Kevin M

2017-07-01

Analyses of the interrelationships between RNA structure and function are increasingly important components of genomic studies. The SHAPE-MaP strategy enables accurate RNA structure probing and realistic structure modeling of kilobase-length noncoding RNAs and mRNAs. Existing tools for visualizing RNA structure models are not suitable for efficient analysis of long, structurally heterogeneous RNAs. In addition, structure models are often advantageously interpreted in the context of other experimental data and gene annotation information, for which few tools currently exist. We have developed a module within the widely used and well supported open-source Integrative Genomics Viewer (IGV) that allows visualization of SHAPE and other chemical probing data, including raw reactivities, data-driven structural entropies, and data-constrained base-pair secondary structure models, in context with linear genomic data tracks. We illustrate the usefulness of visualizing RNA structure in the IGV by exploring structure models for a large viral RNA genome, comparing bacterial mRNA structure in cells with its structure under cell- and protein-free conditions, and comparing a noncoding RNA structure modeled using SHAPE data with a base-pairing model inferred through sequence covariation analysis. © 2017 Busan and Weeks; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the RNA Society.

NoFold: RNA structure clustering without folding or alignment.

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Middleton, Sarah A; Kim, Junhyong

2014-11-01

Structures that recur across multiple different transcripts, called structure motifs, often perform a similar function-for example, recruiting a specific RNA-binding protein that then regulates translation, splicing, or subcellular localization. Identifying common motifs between coregulated transcripts may therefore yield significant insight into their binding partners and mechanism of regulation. However, as most methods for clustering structures are based on folding individual sequences or doing many pairwise alignments, this results in a tradeoff between speed and accuracy that can be problematic for large-scale data sets. Here we describe a novel method for comparing and characterizing RNA secondary structures that does not require folding or pairwise alignment of the input sequences. Our method uses the idea of constructing a distance function between two objects by their respective distances to a collection of empirical examples or models, which in our case consists of 1973 Rfam family covariance models. Using this as a basis for measuring structural similarity, we developed a clustering pipeline called NoFold to automatically identify and annotate structure motifs within large sequence data sets. We demonstrate that NoFold can simultaneously identify multiple structure motifs with an average sensitivity of 0.80 and precision of 0.98 and generally exceeds the performance of existing methods. We also perform a cross-validation analysis of the entire set of Rfam families, achieving an average sensitivity of 0.57. We apply NoFold to identify motifs enriched in dendritically localized transcripts and report 213 enriched motifs, including both known and novel structures. © 2014 Middleton and Kim; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the RNA Society.

Molecular insights into the specific recognition between the RNA binding domain qRRM2 of hnRNP F and G-tract RNA: A molecular dynamics study.

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Wang, Lingyun; Yan, Feng

2017-12-09

Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein F (hnRNP F) controls the expression of various genes through regulating the alternative splicing of pre-mRNAs in the nucleus. It uses three quasi-RNA recognition motifs (qRRMs) to recognize G-tract RNA which contains at least three consecutive guanines. The structures containing qRRMs of hnRNP F in complex with G-tract RNA have been determined by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, shedding light on the recognition mechanism of qRRMs with G-tract RNA. However, knowledge of the recognition details is still lacking. To investigate how qRRMs specifically bind with G-tract RNA and how the mutations of any guanine to an adenine in the G-tract affect the binding, molecular dynamics simulations with binding free energy analysis were performed based on the NMR structure of qRRM2 in complex with G-tract RNA. Simulation results demonstrate that qRRM2 binds strongly with G-tract RNA, but any mutation of the G-tract leads to a drastic reduction of the binding free energy. Further comparisons of the energetic components reveal that van der Waals and non-polar interactions play essential roles in the binding between qRRM2 and G-tract RNA, but the interactions are weakened by the effect of RNA mutations. Structural and dynamical analyses indicate that when qRRM2 binds with G-tract RNA, both qRRM2 and G-tract maintain stabilized structures and dynamics; however, the stability is disrupted by the mutations of the G-tract. These results provide novel insights into the recognition mechanism of qRRM2 with G-tract RNA that are not elucidated by the NMR technique. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Structural insights into mechanisms of the small RNA methyltransferase HEN1

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Huang, Ying; Ji, Lijuan; Huang, Qichen; Vassylyev, Dmitry G.; Chen, Xuemei; Ma, Jin-Biao; (UAB); (UCR)

2010-02-22

RNA silencing is a conserved regulatory mechanism in fungi, plants and animals that regulates gene expression and defence against viruses and transgenes. Small silencing RNAs of {approx}20-30 nucleotides and their associated effector proteins, the Argonaute family proteins, are the central components in RNA silencing. A subset of small RNAs, such as microRNAs and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) in plants, Piwi-interacting RNAs in animals and siRNAs in Drosophila, requires an additional crucial step for their maturation; that is, 2'-O-methylation on the 3' terminal nucleotide. A conserved S-adenosyl-L-methionine-dependent RNA methyltransferase, HUA ENHANCER 1 (HEN1), and its homologues are responsible for this specific modification. Here we report the 3.1 {angstrom} crystal structure of full-length HEN1 from Arabidopsis in complex with a 22-nucleotide small RNA duplex and cofactor product S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine. Highly cooperative recognition of the small RNA substrate by multiple RNA binding domains and the methyltransferase domain in HEN1 measures the length of the RNA duplex and determines the substrate specificity. Metal ion coordination by both 2' and 3' hydroxyls on the 3'-terminal nucleotide and four invariant residues in the active site of the methyltransferase domain suggests a novel Mg{sup 2+}-dependent 2'-O-methylation mechanism.

Automated and fast building of three-dimensional RNA structures.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Yunjie; Huang, Yangyu; Gong, Zhou; Wang, Yanjie; Man, Jianfen; Xiao, Yi

2012-01-01

Building tertiary structures of non-coding RNA is required to understand their functions and design new molecules. Current algorithms of RNA tertiary structure prediction give satisfactory accuracy only for small size and simple topology and many of them need manual manipulation. Here, we present an automated and fast program, 3dRNA, for RNA tertiary structure prediction with reasonable accuracy for RNAs of larger size and complex topology.

Crystal-Structure-Guided Design of Self-Assembling RNA Nanotriangles.

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Boerneke, Mark A; Dibrov, Sergey M; Hermann, Thomas

2016-03-14

RNA nanotechnology uses RNA structural motifs to build nanosized architectures that assemble through selective base-pair interactions. Herein, we report the crystal-structure-guided design of highly stable RNA nanotriangles that self-assemble cooperatively from short oligonucleotides. The crystal structure of an 81 nucleotide nanotriangle determined at 2.6 Å resolution reveals the so-far smallest circularly closed nanoobject made entirely of double-stranded RNA. The assembly of the nanotriangle architecture involved RNA corner motifs that were derived from ligand-responsive RNA switches, which offer the opportunity to control self-assembly and dissociation. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

RNA Structural Alignments, Part I

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Havgaard, Jakob Hull; Gorodkin, Jan

2014-01-01

Simultaneous alignment and secondary structure prediction of RNA sequences is often referred to as "RNA structural alignment." A class of the methods for structural alignment is based on the principles proposed by Sankoff more than 25 years ago. The Sankoff algorithm simultaneously folds and aligns...... is so high that it took more than a decade before the first implementation of a Sankoff style algorithm was published. However, with the faster computers available today and the improved heuristics used in the implementations the Sankoff-based methods have become practical. This chapter describes...... the methods based on the Sankoff algorithm. All the practical implementations of the algorithm use heuristics to make them run in reasonable time and memory. These heuristics are also described in this chapter....

CompaRNA: a server for continuous benchmarking of automated methods for RNA secondary structure prediction

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Puton, Tomasz; Kozlowski, Lukasz P.; Rother, Kristian M.; Bujnicki, Janusz M.

2013-01-01

We present a continuous benchmarking approach for the assessment of RNA secondary structure prediction methods implemented in the CompaRNA web server. As of 3 October 2012, the performance of 28 single-sequence and 13 comparative methods has been evaluated on RNA sequences/structures released weekly by the Protein Data Bank. We also provide a static benchmark generated on RNA 2D structures derived from the RNAstrand database. Benchmarks on both data sets offer insight into the relative performance of RNA secondary structure prediction methods on RNAs of different size and with respect to different types of structure. According to our tests, on the average, the most accurate predictions obtained by a comparative approach are generated by CentroidAlifold, MXScarna, RNAalifold and TurboFold. On the average, the most accurate predictions obtained by single-sequence analyses are generated by CentroidFold, ContextFold and IPknot. The best comparative methods typically outperform the best single-sequence methods if an alignment of homologous RNA sequences is available. This article presents the results of our benchmarks as of 3 October 2012, whereas the rankings presented online are continuously updated. We will gladly include new prediction methods and new measures of accuracy in the new editions of CompaRNA benchmarks. PMID:23435231

CompaRNA: a server for continuous benchmarking of automated methods for RNA secondary structure prediction.

Science.gov (United States)

Puton, Tomasz; Kozlowski, Lukasz P; Rother, Kristian M; Bujnicki, Janusz M

2013-04-01

We present a continuous benchmarking approach for the assessment of RNA secondary structure prediction methods implemented in the CompaRNA web server. As of 3 October 2012, the performance of 28 single-sequence and 13 comparative methods has been evaluated on RNA sequences/structures released weekly by the Protein Data Bank. We also provide a static benchmark generated on RNA 2D structures derived from the RNAstrand database. Benchmarks on both data sets offer insight into the relative performance of RNA secondary structure prediction methods on RNAs of different size and with respect to different types of structure. According to our tests, on the average, the most accurate predictions obtained by a comparative approach are generated by CentroidAlifold, MXScarna, RNAalifold and TurboFold. On the average, the most accurate predictions obtained by single-sequence analyses are generated by CentroidFold, ContextFold and IPknot. The best comparative methods typically outperform the best single-sequence methods if an alignment of homologous RNA sequences is available. This article presents the results of our benchmarks as of 3 October 2012, whereas the rankings presented online are continuously updated. We will gladly include new prediction methods and new measures of accuracy in the new editions of CompaRNA benchmarks.

Small RNA expression and strain specificity in the rat

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de Bruijn Ewart

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Digital gene expression (DGE profiling has become an established tool to study RNA expression. Here, we provide an in-depth analysis of small RNA DGE profiles from two different rat strains (BN-Lx and SHR from six different rat tissues (spleen, liver, brain, testis, heart, kidney. We describe the expression patterns of known and novel micro (miRNAs and piwi-interacting (piRNAs. Results We confirmed the expression of 588 known miRNAs (54 in antisense orientation and identified 56 miRNAs homologous to known human or mouse miRNAs, as well as 45 new rat miRNAs. Furthermore, we confirmed specific A to I editing in brain for mir-376a/b/c and identified mir-377 as a novel editing target. In accordance with earlier findings, we observed a highly tissue-specific expression pattern for all tissues analyzed. The brain was found to express the highest number of tissue-specific miRNAs, followed by testis. Notably, our experiments also revealed robust strain-specific differential miRNA expression in the liver that is caused by genetic variation between the strains. Finally, we identified two types of germline-specific piRNAs in testis, mapping either to transposons or in strand-specific clusters. Conclusions Taken together, the small RNA compendium described here advances the annotation of small RNAs in the rat genome. Strain and tissue-specific expression patterns furthermore provide a strong basis for studying the role of small RNAs in regulatory networks as well as biological process like physiology and neurobiology that are extensively studied in this model system.

Non-specific binding of Na+ and Mg2+ to RNA determined by force spectroscopy methods

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Bizarro, C. V.; Alemany, A.; Ritort, F.

2012-01-01

RNA duplex stability depends strongly on ionic conditions, and inside cells RNAs are exposed to both monovalent and multivalent ions. Despite recent advances, we do not have general methods to quantitatively account for the effects of monovalent and multivalent ions on RNA stability, and the thermodynamic parameters for secondary structure prediction have only been derived at 1M [Na+]. Here, by mechanically unfolding and folding a 20 bp RNA hairpin using optical tweezers, we study the RNA thermodynamics and kinetics at different monovalent and mixed monovalent/Mg2+ salt conditions. We measure the unfolding and folding rupture forces and apply Kramers theory to extract accurate information about the hairpin free energy landscape under tension at a wide range of ionic conditions. We obtain non-specific corrections for the free energy of formation of the RNA hairpin and measure how the distance of the transition state to the folded state changes with force and ionic strength. We experimentally validate the Tightly Bound Ion model and obtain values for the persistence length of ssRNA. Finally, we test the approximate rule by which the non-specific binding affinity of divalent cations at a given concentration is equivalent to that of monovalent cations taken at 100-fold concentration for small molecular constructs. PMID:22492710

Small catalytic RNA: Structure, function and application

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Monforte, Joseph Albert [Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)

1991-04-01

We have utilized a combination of photochemical cross-linking techniques and site-directed mutagenesis to obtain secondary and tertiary structure information for the self-cleaving, self-ligating subsequence of RNA from the negative strand of Satellite Tobacco Ringspot Virus. We have found that the helical regions fold about a hinge to promoting four different possible tertiary interactions, creating a molecular of similar shape to a paperclip. A model suggesting that the ``paperclip`` and ``hammerhead`` RNAs share a similar three dimensional structure is proposed. We have used a self-cleaving RNA molecule related to a subsequence of plant viroids, a ``hammerhead,`` to study the length-dependent folding of RNA produced during transcription by RNA polymerase. We have used this method to determine the length of RNA sequestered within elongating E. coli and T7 RNA polymerase complexes. The data show that for E. coli RNA polymerase 121±s are sequestered within the ternary complex, which is consistent with the presence of an RNA-DNA hybrid within the transcription bubble, as proposed by others. The result for T7 RNA polymerase differs from E. coli RNA polymerase, with only 10{plus_minus}1 nucleotides sequestered within the ternary complex, setting a new upper limit for the minimum RNA-DNA required for a stable elongating complex. Comparisons between E. coli and T7 RNA polymerase are made. The relevance of the results to models or transcription termination, abortive initiation, and initiation to elongation mode transitions are discussed.

GC content around splice sites affects splicing through pre-mRNA secondary structures

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Chen Liang

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Alternative splicing increases protein diversity by generating multiple transcript isoforms from a single gene through different combinations of exons or through different selections of splice sites. It has been reported that RNA secondary structures are involved in alternative splicing. Here we perform a genomic study of RNA secondary structures around splice sites in humans (Homo sapiens, mice (Mus musculus, fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster, and nematodes (Caenorhabditis elegans to further investigate this phenomenon. Results We observe that GC content around splice sites is closely associated with the splice site usage in multiple species. RNA secondary structure is the possible explanation, because the structural stability difference among alternative splice sites, constitutive splice sites, and skipped splice sites can be explained by the GC content difference. Alternative splice sites tend to be GC-enriched and exhibit more stable RNA secondary structures in all of the considered species. In humans and mice, splice sites of first exons and long exons tend to be GC-enriched and hence form more stable structures, indicating the special role of RNA secondary structures in promoter proximal splicing events and the splicing of long exons. In addition, GC-enriched exon-intron junctions tend to be overrepresented in tissue-specific alternative splice sites, indicating the functional consequence of the GC effect. Compared with regions far from splice sites and decoy splice sites, real splice sites are GC-enriched. We also found that the GC-content effect is much stronger than the nucleotide-order effect to form stable secondary structures. Conclusion All of these results indicate that GC content is related to splice site usage and it may mediate the splicing process through RNA secondary structures.

Structure and assembly of the essential RNA ring component of a viral DNA packaging motor.

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Ding, Fang; Lu, Changrui; Zhao, Wei; Rajashankar, Kanagalaghatta R; Anderson, Dwight L; Jardine, Paul J; Grimes, Shelley; Ke, Ailong

2011-05-03

Prohead RNA (pRNA) is an essential component in the assembly and operation of the powerful bacteriophage 29 DNA packaging motor. The pRNA forms a multimeric ring via intermolecular base-pairing interactions between protomers that serves to guide the assembly of the ring ATPase that drives DNA packaging. Here we report the quaternary structure of this rare multimeric RNA at 3.5 Å resolution, crystallized as tetrameric rings. Strong quaternary interactions and the inherent flexibility helped rationalize how free pRNA is able to adopt multiple oligomerization states in solution. These characteristics also allowed excellent fitting of the crystallographic pRNA protomers into previous prohead/pRNA cryo-EM reconstructions, supporting the presence of a pentameric, but not hexameric, pRNA ring in the context of the DNA packaging motor. The pentameric pRNA ring anchors itself directly to the phage prohead by interacting specifically with the fivefold symmetric capsid structures that surround the head-tail connector portal. From these contacts, five RNA superhelices project from the pRNA ring, where they serve as scaffolds for binding and assembly of the ring ATPase, and possibly mediate communication between motor components. Construction of structure-based designer pRNAs with little sequence similarity to the wild-type pRNA were shown to fully support the packaging of 29 DNA.

Prediction of RNA secondary structures: from theory to models and real molecules

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schuster, Peter

2006-01-01

molecules can be modelled readily at the secondary structure level and allows prediction of the most stable (mfe) conformations of complexes together with suboptimal states. Cofolding algorithms are important tools for efficient and highly specific primer design in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and help to explain the mechanisms of small interference RNA (si-RNA) molecules in gene regulation. The evolutionary optimization of RNA structures is illustrated by the search for a target structure and mimics aptamer selection in evolutionary biotechnology. It occurs typically in steps consisting of short adaptive phases interrupted by long epochs of little or no obvious progress in optimization. During these quasi-stationary epochs the populations are essentially confined to neutral networks where they search for sequences that allow a continuation of the adaptive process. Modelling RNA evolution as a simultaneous process in sequence and shape space provides answers to questions of the optimal population size and mutation rates. Kinetic folding is a stochastic process in conformation space. Exact solutions are derived by direct simulation in the form of trajectory sampling or by solving the master equation. The exact solutions can be approximated straightforwardly by Arrhenius kinetics on barrier trees, which represent simplified versions of conformational energy landscapes. The existence of at least one sequence forming any arbitrarily chosen pair of structures is granted by the intersection theorem. Folding kinetics is the key to understanding and designing multistable RNA molecules or RNA switches. These RNAs form two or more long lived conformations, and conformational changes occur either spontaneously or are induced through binding of small molecules or other biopolymers. RNA switches are found in nature where they act as elements in genetic and metabolic regulation. The reliability of RNA secondary structure prediction is limited by the accuracy with which the

The identification and functional annotation of RNA structures conserved in vertebrates

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Seemann, Ernst Stefan; Mirza, Aashiq Hussain; Hansen, Claus

2017-01-01

Structured elements of RNA molecules are essential in, e.g., RNA stabilization, localization and protein interaction, and their conservation across species suggests a common functional role. We computationally screened vertebrate genomes for Conserved RNA Structures (CRSs), leveraging structure-b......-structured counterparts. Our findings of transcribed uncharacterized regulatory regions that contain CRSs support their RNA-mediated functionality.......Structured elements of RNA molecules are essential in, e.g., RNA stabilization, localization and protein interaction, and their conservation across species suggests a common functional role. We computationally screened vertebrate genomes for Conserved RNA Structures (CRSs), leveraging structure......-based, rather than sequence-based, alignments. After careful correction for sequence identity and GC content, we predict ~516k human genomic regions containing CRSs. We find that a substantial fraction of human-mouse CRS regions (i) co-localize consistently with binding sites of the same RNA binding proteins...

Computational RNA secondary structure design: empirical complexity and improved methods

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Condon Anne

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background We investigate the empirical complexity of the RNA secondary structure design problem, that is, the scaling of the typical difficulty of the design task for various classes of RNA structures as the size of the target structure is increased. The purpose of this work is to understand better the factors that make RNA structures hard to design for existing, high-performance algorithms. Such understanding provides the basis for improving the performance of one of the best algorithms for this problem, RNA-SSD, and for characterising its limitations. Results To gain insights into the practical complexity of the problem, we present a scaling analysis on random and biologically motivated structures using an improved version of the RNA-SSD algorithm, and also the RNAinverse algorithm from the Vienna package. Since primary structure constraints are relevant for designing RNA structures, we also investigate the correlation between the number and the location of the primary structure constraints when designing structures and the performance of the RNA-SSD algorithm. The scaling analysis on random and biologically motivated structures supports the hypothesis that the running time of both algorithms scales polynomially with the size of the structure. We also found that the algorithms are in general faster when constraints are placed only on paired bases in the structure. Furthermore, we prove that, according to the standard thermodynamic model, for some structures that the RNA-SSD algorithm was unable to design, there exists no sequence whose minimum free energy structure is the target structure. Conclusion Our analysis helps to better understand the strengths and limitations of both the RNA-SSD and RNAinverse algorithms, and suggests ways in which the performance of these algorithms can be further improved.

Statistical properties of thermodynamically predicted RNA secondary structures in viral genomes

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Spanò, M.; Lillo, F.; Miccichè, S.; Mantegna, R. N.

2008-10-01

By performing a comprehensive study on 1832 segments of 1212 complete genomes of viruses, we show that in viral genomes the hairpin structures of thermodynamically predicted RNA secondary structures are more abundant than expected under a simple random null hypothesis. The detected hairpin structures of RNA secondary structures are present both in coding and in noncoding regions for the four groups of viruses categorized as dsDNA, dsRNA, ssDNA and ssRNA. For all groups, hairpin structures of RNA secondary structures are detected more frequently than expected for a random null hypothesis in noncoding rather than in coding regions. However, potential RNA secondary structures are also present in coding regions of dsDNA group. In fact, we detect evolutionary conserved RNA secondary structures in conserved coding and noncoding regions of a large set of complete genomes of dsDNA herpesviruses.

Small catalytic RNA: Structure, function and application

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Monforte, J.A.

1991-04-01

We have utilized a combination of photochemical cross-linking techniques and site-directed mutagenesis to obtain secondary and tertiary structure information for the self-cleaving, self-ligating subsequence of RNA from the negative strand of Satellite Tobacco Ringspot Virus. We have found that the helical regions fold about a hinge to promoting four different possible tertiary interactions, creating a molecular of similar shape to a paperclip. A model suggesting that the paperclip'' and hammerhead'' RNAs share a similar three dimensional structure is proposed. We have used a self-cleaving RNA molecule related to a subsequence of plant viroids, a hammerhead,'' to study the length-dependent folding of RNA produced during transcription by RNA polymerase. We have used this method to determine the length of RNA sequestered within elongating E. coli and T7 RNA polymerase complexes. The data show that for E. coli RNA polymerase 12{plus minus}1 nucleotides are sequestered within the ternary complex, which is consistent with the presence of an RNA-DNA hybrid within the transcription bubble, as proposed by others. The result for T7 RNA polymerase differs from E. coli RNA polymerase, with only 10{plus minus}1 nucleotides sequestered within the ternary complex, setting a new upper limit for the minimum RNA-DNA required for a stable elongating complex. Comparisons between E. coli and T7 RNA polymerase are made. The relevance of the results to models or transcription termination, abortive initiation, and initiation to elongation mode transitions are discussed.

microRNA expression during trophectoderm specification.

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Srinivas R Viswanathan

2009-07-01

Full Text Available Segregation of the trophectoderm from the inner cell mass of the embryo represents the first cell-fate decision of mammalian development. Transcription factors essential for specifying trophectoderm have been identified, but the role of microRNAs (miRNAs in modulating this fate-choice has been largely unexplored. We have compared miRNA expression in embryonic stem cell (ESC-derived trophectoderm and in staged murine embryos to identify a set of candidate miRNAs likely to be involved in trophectoderm specification.We profiled embryonic stem cells (ESCs as they were induced to differentiate into trophectodermal cells by ectopic expression of HRas/Q61L. We also profiled murine embryos at progressive stages of preimplantation development (zygote, 2-cell, 4-cell, 8-cell, morula, and blastocyst, which includes the time window in which the trophectoderm is specified in vivo Q61L/H.We describe miRNA expression changes that occur during trophectoderm specification and validate that our in vitro system faithfully recapitulates trophectoderm specification in vivo. By comparing our in vitro and in vivo datasets, we have identified a minimal set of candidate miRNAs likely to play a role in trophectoderm specification. These miRNAs are predicted to regulate a host of development-associated target genes, and many of these miRNAs have previously reported roles in development and differentiation. Additionally, we highlight a number of miRNAs whose tight developmental regulation may reflect a functional role in other stages of embryogenesis. Our embryo profiling data may be useful to investigators studying trophectoderm specification and other stages of preimplantation development.

Nuclear factor 90 uses an ADAR2-like binding mode to recognize specific bases in dsRNA.

Science.gov (United States)

Jayachandran, Uma; Grey, Heather; Cook, Atlanta G

2016-02-29

Nuclear factors 90 and 45 (NF90 and NF45) form a protein complex involved in the post-transcriptional control of many genes in vertebrates. NF90 is a member of the dsRNA binding domain (dsRBD) family of proteins. RNA binding partners identified so far include elements in 3' untranslated regions of specific mRNAs and several non-coding RNAs. In NF90, a tandem pair of dsRBDs separated by a natively unstructured segment confers dsRNA binding activity. We determined a crystal structure of the tandem dsRBDs of NF90 in complex with a synthetic dsRNA. This complex shows surprising similarity to the tandem dsRBDs from an adenosine-to-inosine editing enzyme, ADAR2 in complex with a substrate RNA. Residues involved in unusual base-specific recognition in the minor groove of dsRNA are conserved between NF90 and ADAR2. These data suggest that, like ADAR2, underlying sequences in dsRNA may influence how NF90 recognizes its target RNAs. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Reconstruction of ancestral RNA sequences under multiple structural constraints

OpenAIRE

Tremblay-Savard, Olivier; Reinharz, Vladimir; Waldisp?hl, J?r?me

2016-01-01

Background Secondary structures form the scaffold of multiple sequence alignment of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) families. An accurate reconstruction of ancestral ncRNAs must use this structural signal. However, the inference of ancestors of a single ncRNA family with a single consensus structure may bias the results towards sequences with high affinity to this structure, which are far from the true ancestors. Methods In this paper, we introduce achARNement, a maximum parsimony approach that, given...

Functional RNA structures throughout the Hepatitis C Virus genome.

Science.gov (United States)

Adams, Rebecca L; Pirakitikulr, Nathan; Pyle, Anna Marie

2017-06-01

The single-stranded Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) genome adopts a set of elaborate RNA structures that are involved in every stage of the viral lifecycle. Recent advances in chemical probing, sequencing, and structural biology have facilitated analysis of RNA folding on a genome-wide scale, revealing novel structures and networks of interactions. These studies have underscored the active role played by RNA in every function of HCV and they open the door to new types of RNA-targeted therapeutics. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

RNA is an integral component of chromatin that contributes to its structural organization.

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Antonio Rodríguez-Campos

Full Text Available Chromatin structure is influenced by multiples factors, such as pH, temperature, nature and concentration of counterions, post-translational modifications of histones and binding of structural non-histone proteins. RNA is also known to contribute to the regulation of chromatin structure as chromatin-induced gene silencing was shown to depend on the RNAi machinery in S. pombe, plants and Drosophila. Moreover, both in Drosophila and mammals, dosage compensation requires the contribution of specific non-coding RNAs. However, whether RNA itself plays a direct structural role in chromatin is not known. Here, we report results that indicate a general structural role for RNA in eukaryotic chromatin. RNA is found associated to purified chromatin prepared from chicken liver, or cultured Drosophila S2 cells, and treatment with RNase A alters the structural properties of chromatin. Our results indicate that chromatin-associated RNAs, which account for 2%-5% of total chromatin-associated nucleic acids, are polyA(- and show a size similar to that of the DNA contained in the corresponding chromatin fragments. Chromatin-associated RNA(s are not likely to correspond to nascent transcripts as they are also found bound to chromatin when cells are treated with alpha-amanitin. After treatment with RNase A, chromatin fragments of molecular weight >3.000 bp of DNA showed reduced sedimentation through sucrose gradients and increased sensitivity to micrococcal nuclease digestion. This structural transition, which is observed both at euchromatic and heterochromatic regions, proceeds without loss of histone H1 or any significant change in core-histone composition and integrity.

Structural insights into RISC assembly facilitated by dsRNA-binding domains of human RNA helicase A (DHX9).

Science.gov (United States)

Fu, Qinqin; Yuan, Y Adam

2013-03-01

Intensive research interest has focused on small RNA-processing machinery and the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), key cellular machines in RNAi pathways. However, the structural mechanism regarding RISC assembly, the primary step linking small RNA processing and RNA-mediated gene silencing, is largely unknown. Human RNA helicase A (DHX9) was reported to function as an RISC-loading factor, and such function is mediated mainly by its dsRNA-binding domains (dsRBDs). Here, we report the crystal structures of human RNA helicase A (RHA) dsRBD1 and dsRBD2 domains in complex with dsRNAs, respectively. Structural analysis not only reveals higher siRNA duplex-binding affinity displayed by dsRBD1, but also identifies a crystallographic dsRBD1 pair of physiological significance in cooperatively recognizing dsRNAs. Structural observations are further validated by isothermal titration calorimetric (ITC) assay. Moreover, co-immunoprecipitation (co-IP) assay coupled with mutagenesis demonstrated that both dsRBDs are required for RISC association, and such association is mediated by dsRNA. Hence, our structural and functional efforts have revealed a potential working model for siRNA recognition by RHA tandem dsRBDs, and together they provide direct structural insights into RISC assembly facilitated by RHA.

Random generation of RNA secondary structures according to native distributions

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Nebel Markus E

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Random biological sequences are a topic of great interest in genome analysis since, according to a powerful paradigm, they represent the background noise from which the actual biological information must differentiate. Accordingly, the generation of random sequences has been investigated for a long time. Similarly, random object of a more complicated structure like RNA molecules or proteins are of interest. Results In this article, we present a new general framework for deriving algorithms for the non-uniform random generation of combinatorial objects according to the encoding and probability distribution implied by a stochastic context-free grammar. Briefly, the framework extends on the well-known recursive method for (uniform random generation and uses the popular framework of admissible specifications of combinatorial classes, introducing weighted combinatorial classes to allow for the non-uniform generation by means of unranking. This framework is used to derive an algorithm for the generation of RNA secondary structures of a given fixed size. We address the random generation of these structures according to a realistic distribution obtained from real-life data by using a very detailed context-free grammar (that models the class of RNA secondary structures by distinguishing between all known motifs in RNA structure. Compared to well-known sampling approaches used in several structure prediction tools (such as SFold ours has two major advantages: Firstly, after a preprocessing step in time O(n2 for the computation of all weighted class sizes needed, with our approach a set of m random secondary structures of a given structure size n can be computed in worst-case time complexity Om⋅n⋅ log(n while other algorithms typically have a runtime in O(m⋅n2. Secondly, our approach works with integer arithmetic only which is faster and saves us from all the discomforting details of using floating point arithmetic with

In vitro synthesis of minus-strand RNA by an isolated cereal yellow dwarf virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase requires VPg and a stem-loop structure at the 3' end of the virus RNA.

Science.gov (United States)

Osman, Toba A M; Coutts, Robert H A; Buck, Kenneth W

2006-11-01

Cereal yellow dwarf virus (CYDV) RNA has a 5'-terminal genome-linked protein (VPg). We have expressed the VPg region of the CYDV genome in bacteria and used the purified protein (bVPg) to raise an antiserum which was able to detect free VPg in extracts of CYDV-infected oat plants. A template-dependent RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) has been produced from a CYDV membrane-bound RNA polymerase by treatment with BAL 31 nuclease. The RdRp was template specific, being able to utilize templates from CYDV plus- and minus-strand RNAs but not those of three unrelated viruses, Red clover necrotic mosaic virus, Cucumber mosaic virus, and Tobacco mosaic virus. RNA synthesis catalyzed by the RdRp required a 3'-terminal GU sequence and the presence of bVPg. Additionally, synthesis of minus-strand RNA on a plus-strand RNA template required the presence of a putative stem-loop structure near the 3' terminus of CYDV RNA. The base-paired stem, a single-nucleotide (A) bulge in the stem, and the sequence of a tetraloop were all required for the template activity. Evidence was produced showing that minus-strand synthesis in vitro was initiated by priming by bVPg at the 3' end of the template. The data are consistent with a model in which the RdRp binds to the stem-loop structure which positions the active site to recognize the 3'-terminal GU sequence for initiation of RNA synthesis by the addition of an A residue to VPg.

Landscape and variation of RNA secondary structure across the human transcriptome.

OpenAIRE

Wan, Y; Qu, K; Zhang, QC; Flynn, RA; Manor, O; Ouyang, Z; Zhang, J; Spitale, RC; Snyder, MP; Segal, E; Chang, HY

2014-01-01

In parallel to the genetic code for protein synthesis, a second layer of information is embedded in all RNA transcripts in the form of RNA structure. RNA structure influences practically every step in the gene expression program. However, the nature of most RNA structures or effects of sequence variation on structure are not known. Here we report the initial landscape and variation of RNA secondary structures (RSSs) in a human family trio (mother, father and their child). This provides a comp...

An automated procedure for covariation-based detection of RNA structure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Winker, S.; Overbeek, R.; Woese, C.R.; Olsen, G.J.; Pfluger, N.

1989-12-01

This paper summarizes our investigations into the computational detection of secondary and tertiary structure of ribosomal RNA. We have developed a new automated procedure that not only identifies potential bondings of secondary and tertiary structure, but also provides the covariation evidence that supports the proposed bondings, and any counter-evidence that can be detected in the known sequences. A small number of previously unknown bondings have been detected in individual RNA molecules (16S rRNA and 7S RNA) through the use of our automated procedure. Currently, we are systematically studying mitochondrial rRNA. Our goal is to detect tertiary structure within 16S rRNA and quaternary structure between 16S and 23S rRNA. Our ultimate hope is that automated covariation analysis will contribute significantly to a refined picture of ribosome structure. Our colleagues in biology have begun experiments to test certain hypotheses suggested by an examination of our program's output. These experiments involve sequencing key portions of the 23S ribosomal RNA for species in which the known 16S ribosomal RNA exhibits variation (from the dominant pattern) at the site of a proposed bonding. The hope is that the 23S ribosomal RNA of these species will exhibit corresponding complementary variation or generalized covariation. 24 refs

An automated procedure for covariation-based detection of RNA structure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Winker, S.; Overbeek, R.; Woese, C.R.; Olsen, G.J.; Pfluger, N.

1989-12-01

This paper summarizes our investigations into the computational detection of secondary and tertiary structure of ribosomal RNA. We have developed a new automated procedure that not only identifies potential bondings of secondary and tertiary structure, but also provides the covariation evidence that supports the proposed bondings, and any counter-evidence that can be detected in the known sequences. A small number of previously unknown bondings have been detected in individual RNA molecules (16S rRNA and 7S RNA) through the use of our automated procedure. Currently, we are systematically studying mitochondrial rRNA. Our goal is to detect tertiary structure within 16S rRNA and quaternary structure between 16S and 23S rRNA. Our ultimate hope is that automated covariation analysis will contribute significantly to a refined picture of ribosome structure. Our colleagues in biology have begun experiments to test certain hypotheses suggested by an examination of our program's output. These experiments involve sequencing key portions of the 23S ribosomal RNA for species in which the known 16S ribosomal RNA exhibits variation (from the dominant pattern) at the site of a proposed bonding. The hope is that the 23S ribosomal RNA of these species will exhibit corresponding complementary variation or generalized covariation. 24 refs.

A comprehensive comparison of comparative RNA structure prediction approaches

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gardner, P. P.; Giegerich, R.

2004-01-01

-finding and multiple-sequence-alignment algorithms. Results Here we evaluate a number of RNA folding algorithms using reliable RNA data-sets and compare their relative performance. Conclusions We conclude that comparative data can enhance structure prediction but structure-prediction-algorithms vary widely in terms......Background An increasing number of researchers have released novel RNA structure analysis and prediction algorithms for comparative approaches to structure prediction. Yet, independent benchmarking of these algorithms is rarely performed as is now common practice for protein-folding, gene...

Terminal structures of West Nile virus genomic RNA and their interactions with viral NS5 protein

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dong Hongping; Zhang Bo; Shi Peiyong

2008-01-01

Genome cyclization is essential for flavivirus replication. We used RNases to probe the structures formed by the 5'-terminal 190 nucleotides and the 3'-terminal 111 nucleotides of the West Nile virus (WNV) genomic RNA. When analyzed individually, the two RNAs adopt stem-loop structures as predicted by the thermodynamic-folding program. However, when mixed together, the two RNAs form a duplex that is mediated through base-pairings of two sets of RNA elements (5'CS/3'CSI and 5'UAR/3'UAR). Formation of the RNA duplex facilitates a conformational change that leaves the 3'-terminal nucleotides of the genome (position - 8 to - 16) to be single-stranded. Viral NS5 binds specifically to the 5'-terminal stem-loop (SL1) of the genomic RNA. The 5'SL1 RNA structure is essential for WNV replication. The study has provided further evidence to suggest that flavivirus genome cyclization and NS5/5'SL1 RNA interaction facilitate NS5 binding to the 3' end of the genome for the initiation of viral minus-strand RNA synthesis

MultiSETTER: web server for multiple RNA structure comparison.

Science.gov (United States)

Čech, Petr; Hoksza, David; Svozil, Daniel

2015-08-12

Understanding the architecture and function of RNA molecules requires methods for comparing and analyzing their tertiary and quaternary structures. While structural superposition of short RNAs is achievable in a reasonable time, large structures represent much bigger challenge. Therefore, we have developed a fast and accurate algorithm for RNA pairwise structure superposition called SETTER and implemented it in the SETTER web server. However, though biological relationships can be inferred by a pairwise structure alignment, key features preserved by evolution can be identified only from a multiple structure alignment. Thus, we extended the SETTER algorithm to the alignment of multiple RNA structures and developed the MultiSETTER algorithm. In this paper, we present the updated version of the SETTER web server that implements a user friendly interface to the MultiSETTER algorithm. The server accepts RNA structures either as the list of PDB IDs or as user-defined PDB files. After the superposition is computed, structures are visualized in 3D and several reports and statistics are generated. To the best of our knowledge, the MultiSETTER web server is the first publicly available tool for a multiple RNA structure alignment. The MultiSETTER server offers the visual inspection of an alignment in 3D space which may reveal structural and functional relationships not captured by other multiple alignment methods based either on a sequence or on secondary structure motifs.

Evolutionary rate variation and RNA secondary structure prediction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Knudsen, B.; Andersen, E.S.; Damgaard, C.

2004-01-01

Predicting RNA secondary structure using evolutionary history can be carried out by using an alignment of related RNA sequences with conserved structure. Accurately determining evolutionary substitution rates for base pairs and single stranded nucleotides is a concern for methods based on this type...... by applying rates derived from tRNA and rRNA to the prediction of the much more rapidly evolving 5'-region of HIV-1. We find that the HIV-1 prediction is in agreement with experimental data, even though the relative evolutionary rate between A and G is significantly increased, both in stem and loop regions...

RNA secondary structure image - fRNAdb | LSDB Archive [Life Science Database Archive metadata

Lifescience Database Archive (English)

Full Text Available List Contact us fRNAdb RNA secondary structure image Data detail Data name RNA secondary structure image DOI... 10.18908/lsdba.nbdc00452-005 Description of data contents RNA secondary structure images - png.zip: RNA secondary structure image...s (PNG) - pdf.zip: RNA secondary structure images (PDF) - thumbnail.zip: Thumbnails of... RNA secondary structure images Data file File name: RNA_secondary_structure_image... File URL: ftp://ftp.biosciencedbc.jp/archive/frnadb/LATEST/RNA_secondary_structure_image File size: 9.6 GB

Vfold: a web server for RNA structure and folding thermodynamics prediction.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Xiaojun; Zhao, Peinan; Chen, Shi-Jie

2014-01-01

The ever increasing discovery of non-coding RNAs leads to unprecedented demand for the accurate modeling of RNA folding, including the predictions of two-dimensional (base pair) and three-dimensional all-atom structures and folding stabilities. Accurate modeling of RNA structure and stability has far-reaching impact on our understanding of RNA functions in human health and our ability to design RNA-based therapeutic strategies. The Vfold server offers a web interface to predict (a) RNA two-dimensional structure from the nucleotide sequence, (b) three-dimensional structure from the two-dimensional structure and the sequence, and (c) folding thermodynamics (heat capacity melting curve) from the sequence. To predict the two-dimensional structure (base pairs), the server generates an ensemble of structures, including loop structures with the different intra-loop mismatches, and evaluates the free energies using the experimental parameters for the base stacks and the loop entropy parameters given by a coarse-grained RNA folding model (the Vfold model) for the loops. To predict the three-dimensional structure, the server assembles the motif scaffolds using structure templates extracted from the known PDB structures and refines the structure using all-atom energy minimization. The Vfold-based web server provides a user friendly tool for the prediction of RNA structure and stability. The web server and the source codes are freely accessible for public use at "http://rna.physics.missouri.edu".

PRince: a web server for structural and physicochemical analysis of protein-RNA interface.

Science.gov (United States)

Barik, Amita; Mishra, Abhishek; Bahadur, Ranjit Prasad

2012-07-01

We have developed a web server, PRince, which analyzes the structural features and physicochemical properties of the protein-RNA interface. Users need to submit a PDB file containing the atomic coordinates of both the protein and the RNA molecules in complex form (in '.pdb' format). They should also mention the chain identifiers of interacting protein and RNA molecules. The size of the protein-RNA interface is estimated by measuring the solvent accessible surface area buried in contact. For a given protein-RNA complex, PRince calculates structural, physicochemical and hydration properties of the interacting surfaces. All these parameters generated by the server are presented in a tabular format. The interacting surfaces can also be visualized with software plug-in like Jmol. In addition, the output files containing the list of the atomic coordinates of the interacting protein, RNA and interface water molecules can be downloaded. The parameters generated by PRince are novel, and users can correlate them with the experimentally determined biophysical and biochemical parameters for better understanding the specificity of the protein-RNA recognition process. This server will be continuously upgraded to include more parameters. PRince is publicly accessible and free for use. Available at http://www.facweb.iitkgp.ernet.in/~rbahadur/prince/home.html.

Rclick: a web server for comparison of RNA 3D structures.

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, Minh N; Verma, Chandra

2015-03-15

RNA molecules play important roles in key biological processes in the cell and are becoming attractive for developing therapeutic applications. Since the function of RNA depends on its structure and dynamics, comparing and classifying the RNA 3D structures is of crucial importance to molecular biology. In this study, we have developed Rclick, a web server that is capable of superimposing RNA 3D structures by using clique matching and 3D least-squares fitting. Our server Rclick has been benchmarked and compared with other popular servers and methods for RNA structural alignments. In most cases, Rclick alignments were better in terms of structure overlap. Our server also recognizes conformational changes between structures. For this purpose, the server produces complementary alignments to maximize the extent of detectable similarity. Various examples showcase the utility of our web server for comparison of RNA, RNA-protein complexes and RNA-ligand structures. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Using the Hepatitis C Virus RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase as a Model to Understand Viral Polymerase Structure, Function and Dynamics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ester Sesmero

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Viral polymerases replicate and transcribe the genomes of several viruses of global health concern such as Hepatitis C virus (HCV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV and Ebola virus. For this reason they are key targets for therapies to treat viral infections. Although there is little sequence similarity across the different types of viral polymerases, all of them present a right-hand shape and certain structural motifs that are highly conserved. These features allow their functional properties to be compared, with the goal of broadly applying the knowledge acquired from studying specific viral polymerases to other viral polymerases about which less is known. Here we review the structural and functional properties of the HCV RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (NS5B in order to understand the fundamental processes underlying the replication of viral genomes. We discuss recent insights into the process by which RNA replication occurs in NS5B as well as the role that conformational changes play in this process.

HD-RNAS: An automated hierarchical database of RNA structures

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Shubhra Sankar eRay

2012-04-01

Full Text Available One of the important goals of most biological investigations is to classify and organize the experimental findings so that they are readily useful for deriving generalized rules. Although there is a huge amount of information on RNA structures in PDB, there are redundant files, ambiguous synthetic sequences etc. Moreover, a systematic hierarchical organization, reflecting RNA classification, is missing in PDB. In this investigation, we have classified all the available RNA crystal structures from PDB through a programmatic approach. Hence, it would be now a simple assignment to regularly update the classification as and when new structures are released. The classification can further determine (i a non-redundant set of RNA structures and (ii if available, a set of structures of identical sequence and function, which can highlight structural polymorphism, ligand-induced conformational alterations etc. Presently, we have classified the available structures (2095 PDB entries having RNA chain longer than 9 nucleotides solved by X-ray crystallography or NMR spectroscopy into nine functional classes. The structures of same function and same source are mostly seen to be similar with subtle differences depending on their functional complexation. The web-server is available online at http://www.saha.ac.in/biop/www/HD-RNAS.html and is updated regularly.

New families of human regulatory RNA structures identified by comparative analysis of vertebrate genomes.

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Parker, Brian J; Moltke, Ida; Roth, Adam; Washietl, Stefan; Wen, Jiayu; Kellis, Manolis; Breaker, Ronald; Pedersen, Jakob Skou

2011-11-01

Regulatory RNA structures are often members of families with multiple paralogous instances across the genome. Family members share functional and structural properties, which allow them to be studied as a whole, facilitating both bioinformatic and experimental characterization. We have developed a comparative method, EvoFam, for genome-wide identification of families of regulatory RNA structures, based on primary sequence and secondary structure similarity. We apply EvoFam to a 41-way genomic vertebrate alignment. Genome-wide, we identify 220 human, high-confidence families outside protein-coding regions comprising 725 individual structures, including 48 families with known structural RNA elements. Known families identified include both noncoding RNAs, e.g., miRNAs and the recently identified MALAT1/MEN β lincRNA family; and cis-regulatory structures, e.g., iron-responsive elements. We also identify tens of new families supported by strong evolutionary evidence and other statistical evidence, such as GO term enrichments. For some of these, detailed analysis has led to the formulation of specific functional hypotheses. Examples include two hypothesized auto-regulatory feedback mechanisms: one involving six long hairpins in the 3'-UTR of MAT2A, a key metabolic gene that produces the primary human methyl donor S-adenosylmethionine; the other involving a tRNA-like structure in the intron of the tRNA maturation gene POP1. We experimentally validate the predicted MAT2A structures. Finally, we identify potential new regulatory networks, including large families of short hairpins enriched in immunity-related genes, e.g., TNF, FOS, and CTLA4, which include known transcript destabilizing elements. Our findings exemplify the diversity of post-transcriptional regulation and provide a resource for further characterization of new regulatory mechanisms and families of noncoding RNAs.

A Comparative Taxonomy of Parallel Algorithms for RNA Secondary Structure Prediction

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Khatib, Ra’ed M.; Abdullah, Rosni; Rashid, Nur’Aini Abdul

2010-01-01

RNA molecules have been discovered playing crucial roles in numerous biological and medical procedures and processes. RNA structures determination have become a major problem in the biology context. Recently, computer scientists have empowered the biologists with RNA secondary structures that ease an understanding of the RNA functions and roles. Detecting RNA secondary structure is an NP-hard problem, especially in pseudoknotted RNA structures. The detection process is also time-consuming; as a result, an alternative approach such as using parallel architectures is a desirable option. The main goal in this paper is to do an intensive investigation of parallel methods used in the literature to solve the demanding issues, related to the RNA secondary structure prediction methods. Then, we introduce a new taxonomy for the parallel RNA folding methods. Based on this proposed taxonomy, a systematic and scientific comparison is performed among these existing methods. PMID:20458364

A method for rapid similarity analysis of RNA secondary structures

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Liu Na

2006-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Owing to the rapid expansion of RNA structure databases in recent years, efficient methods for structure comparison are in demand for function prediction and evolutionary analysis. Usually, the similarity of RNA secondary structures is evaluated based on tree models and dynamic programming algorithms. We present here a new method for the similarity analysis of RNA secondary structures. Results Three sets of real data have been used as input for the example applications. Set I includes the structures from 5S rRNAs. Set II includes the secondary structures from RNase P and RNase MRP. Set III includes the structures from 16S rRNAs. Reasonable phylogenetic trees are derived for these three sets of data by using our method. Moreover, our program runs faster as compared to some existing ones. Conclusion The famous Lempel-Ziv algorithm can efficiently extract the information on repeated patterns encoded in RNA secondary structures and makes our method an alternative to analyze the similarity of RNA secondary structures. This method will also be useful to researchers who are interested in evolutionary analysis.

Reconstruction of ancestral RNA sequences under multiple structural constraints.

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Tremblay-Savard, Olivier; Reinharz, Vladimir; Waldispühl, Jérôme

2016-11-11

Secondary structures form the scaffold of multiple sequence alignment of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) families. An accurate reconstruction of ancestral ncRNAs must use this structural signal. However, the inference of ancestors of a single ncRNA family with a single consensus structure may bias the results towards sequences with high affinity to this structure, which are far from the true ancestors. In this paper, we introduce achARNement, a maximum parsimony approach that, given two alignments of homologous ncRNA families with consensus secondary structures and a phylogenetic tree, simultaneously calculates ancestral RNA sequences for these two families. We test our methodology on simulated data sets, and show that achARNement outperforms classical maximum parsimony approaches in terms of accuracy, but also reduces by several orders of magnitude the number of candidate sequences. To conclude this study, we apply our algorithms on the Glm clan and the FinP-traJ clan from the Rfam database. Our results show that our methods reconstruct small sets of high-quality candidate ancestors with better agreement to the two target structures than with classical approaches. Our program is freely available at: http://csb.cs.mcgill.ca/acharnement .

Functional Equivalence of Retroviral MA Domains in Facilitating Psi RNA Binding Specificity by Gag

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Tiffiny Rye-McCurdy

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Retroviruses specifically package full-length, dimeric genomic RNA (gRNA even in the presence of a vast excess of cellular RNA. The “psi” (Ψ element within the 5′-untranslated region (5′UTR of gRNA is critical for packaging through interaction with the nucleocapsid (NC domain of Gag. However, in vitro Gag binding affinity for Ψ versus non-Ψ RNAs is not significantly different. Previous salt-titration binding assays revealed that human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1 Gag bound to Ψ RNA with high specificity and relatively few charge interactions, whereas binding to non-Ψ RNA was less specific and involved more electrostatic interactions. The NC domain was critical for specific Ψ binding, but surprisingly, a Gag mutant lacking the matrix (MA domain was less effective at discriminating Ψ from non-Ψ RNA. We now find that Rous sarcoma virus (RSV Gag also effectively discriminates RSV Ψ from non-Ψ RNA in a MA-dependent manner. Interestingly, Gag chimeras, wherein the HIV-1 and RSV MA domains were swapped, maintained high binding specificity to cognate Ψ RNAs. Using Ψ RNA mutant constructs, determinants responsible for promoting high Gag binding specificity were identified in both systems. Taken together, these studies reveal the functional equivalence of HIV-1 and RSV MA domains in facilitating Ψ RNA selectivity by Gag, as well as Ψ elements that promote this selectivity.

Solving the RNA polymerase I structural puzzle

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Moreno-Morcillo, María [European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg (Germany); Taylor, Nicholas M. I. [Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Ramiro de Maeztu 9, 28040 Madrid (Spain); Gruene, Tim [Georg-August-University, Tammannstrasse 4, 37077 Göttingen (Germany); Legrand, Pierre [SOLEIL Synchrotron, L’Orme de Merisiers, Saint Aubin, Gif-sur-Yvette (France); Rashid, Umar J. [European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg (Germany); Ruiz, Federico M. [Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Ramiro de Maeztu 9, 28040 Madrid (Spain); Steuerwald, Ulrich; Müller, Christoph W. [European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg (Germany); Fernández-Tornero, Carlos, E-mail: cftornero@cib.csic.es [Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Ramiro de Maeztu 9, 28040 Madrid (Spain); European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg (Germany)

2014-10-01

Details of the RNA polymerase I crystal structure determination provide a framework for solution of the structures of other multi-subunit complexes. Simple crystallographic experiments are described to extract relevant biological information such as the location of the enzyme active site. Knowing the structure of multi-subunit complexes is critical to understand basic cellular functions. However, when crystals of these complexes can be obtained they rarely diffract beyond 3 Å resolution, which complicates X-ray structure determination and refinement. The crystal structure of RNA polymerase I, an essential cellular machine that synthesizes the precursor of ribosomal RNA in the nucleolus of eukaryotic cells, has recently been solved. Here, the crucial steps that were undertaken to build the atomic model of this multi-subunit enzyme are reported, emphasizing how simple crystallographic experiments can be used to extract relevant biological information. In particular, this report discusses the combination of poor molecular replacement and experimental phases, the application of multi-crystal averaging and the use of anomalous scatterers as sequence markers to guide tracing and to locate the active site. The methods outlined here will likely serve as a reference for future structural determination of large complexes at low resolution.

RNA FRABASE 2.0: an advanced web-accessible database with the capacity to search the three-dimensional fragments within RNA structures

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Wasik Szymon

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Recent discoveries concerning novel functions of RNA, such as RNA interference, have contributed towards the growing importance of the field. In this respect, a deeper knowledge of complex three-dimensional RNA structures is essential to understand their new biological functions. A number of bioinformatic tools have been proposed to explore two major structural databases (PDB, NDB in order to analyze various aspects of RNA tertiary structures. One of these tools is RNA FRABASE 1.0, the first web-accessible database with an engine for automatic search of 3D fragments within PDB-derived RNA structures. This search is based upon the user-defined RNA secondary structure pattern. In this paper, we present and discuss RNA FRABASE 2.0. This second version of the system represents a major extension of this tool in terms of providing new data and a wide spectrum of novel functionalities. An intuitionally operated web server platform enables very fast user-tailored search of three-dimensional RNA fragments, their multi-parameter conformational analysis and visualization. Description RNA FRABASE 2.0 has stored information on 1565 PDB-deposited RNA structures, including all NMR models. The RNA FRABASE 2.0 search engine algorithms operate on the database of the RNA sequences and the new library of RNA secondary structures, coded in the dot-bracket format extended to hold multi-stranded structures and to cover residues whose coordinates are missing in the PDB files. The library of RNA secondary structures (and their graphics is made available. A high level of efficiency of the 3D search has been achieved by introducing novel tools to formulate advanced searching patterns and to screen highly populated tertiary structure elements. RNA FRABASE 2.0 also stores data and conformational parameters in order to provide "on the spot" structural filters to explore the three-dimensional RNA structures. An instant visualization of the 3D RNA

Structure of the prolyl-tRNA synthetase from the eukaryotic pathogen Giardia lamblia

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Larson, Eric T.; Kim, Jessica E.; Napuli, Alberto J.; Verlinde, Christophe L. M. J.; Fan, Erkang; Zucker, Frank H.; Van Voorhis, Wesley C.; Buckner, Frederick S.; Hol, Wim G. J.; Merritt, Ethan A., E-mail: merritt@u.washington.edu [Medical Structural Genomics of Pathogenic Protozoa, (United States); University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States)

2012-09-01

The structure of Giardia prolyl-tRNA synthetase cocrystallized with proline and ATP shows evidence for half-of-the-sites activity, leading to a corresponding mixture of reaction substrates and product (prolyl-AMP) in the two active sites of the dimer. The genome of the human intestinal parasite Giardia lamblia contains only a single aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase gene for each amino acid. The Giardia prolyl-tRNA synthetase gene product was originally misidentified as a dual-specificity Pro/Cys enzyme, in part owing to its unexpectedly high off-target activation of cysteine, but is now believed to be a normal representative of the class of archaeal/eukaryotic prolyl-tRNA synthetases. The 2.2 Å resolution crystal structure of the G. lamblia enzyme presented here is thus the first structure determination of a prolyl-tRNA synthetase from a eukaryote. The relative occupancies of substrate (proline) and product (prolyl-AMP) in the active site are consistent with half-of-the-sites reactivity, as is the observed biphasic thermal denaturation curve for the protein in the presence of proline and MgATP. However, no corresponding induced asymmetry is evident in the structure of the protein. No thermal stabilization is observed in the presence of cysteine and ATP. The implied low affinity for the off-target activation product cysteinyl-AMP suggests that translational fidelity in Giardia is aided by the rapid release of misactivated cysteine.

URS DataBase: universe of RNA structures and their motifs.

Science.gov (United States)

Baulin, Eugene; Yacovlev, Victor; Khachko, Denis; Spirin, Sergei; Roytberg, Mikhail

2016-01-01

The Universe of RNA Structures DataBase (URSDB) stores information obtained from all RNA-containing PDB entries (2935 entries in October 2015). The content of the database is updated regularly. The database consists of 51 tables containing indexed data on various elements of the RNA structures. The database provides a web interface allowing user to select a subset of structures with desired features and to obtain various statistical data for a selected subset of structures or for all structures. In particular, one can easily obtain statistics on geometric parameters of base pairs, on structural motifs (stems, loops, etc.) or on different types of pseudoknots. The user can also view and get information on an individual structure or its selected parts, e.g. RNA-protein hydrogen bonds. URSDB employs a new original definition of loops in RNA structures. That definition fits both pseudoknot-free and pseudoknotted secondary structures and coincides with the classical definition in case of pseudoknot-free structures. To our knowledge, URSDB is the first database supporting searches based on topological classification of pseudoknots and on extended loop classification.Database URL: http://server3.lpm.org.ru/urs/. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.

The long noncoding RNA RNCR2 directs mouse retinal cell specification

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Blackshaw Seth

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Recent work has identified that many long mRNA-like noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs are expressed in the developing nervous system. Despite their abundance, the function of these ncRNAs has remained largely unexplored. We have investigated the highly abundant lncRNA RNCR2 in regulation of mouse retinal cell differentiation. Results We find that the RNCR2 is selectively expressed in a subset of both mitotic progenitors and postmitotic retinal precursor cells. ShRNA-mediated knockdown of RNCR2 results in an increase of both amacrine cells and Müller glia, indicating a role for this lncRNA in regulating retinal cell fate specification. We further report that RNCR2 RNA, which is normally nuclear-retained, can be exported from the nucleus when fused to an IRES-GFP sequence. Overexpression of RNCR2-IRES-GFP phenocopies the effects of shRNA-mediated knockdown of RNCR2, implying that forced mislocalization of RNCR2 induces a dominant-negative phenotype. Finally, we use the IRES-GFP fusion approach to identify specific domains of RNCR2 that are required for repressing both amacrine and Müller glial differentiation. Conclusion These data demonstrate that the lncRNA RNCR2 plays a critical role in regulating mammalian retinal cell fate specification. Furthermore, we present a novel approach for generating dominant-negative constructs of lncRNAs, which may be generally useful in the functional analysis of this class of molecules.

Approaches to link RNA secondary structures with splicing regulation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Plass, Mireya; Eyras, Eduardo

2014-01-01

In higher eukaryotes, alternative splicing is usually regulated by protein factors, which bind to the pre-mRNA and affect the recognition of splicing signals. There is recent evidence that the secondary structure of the pre-mRNA may also play an important role in this process, either by facilitat...... describes the steps in the analysis of the secondary structure of the pre-mRNA and its possible relation to splicing. As a working example, we use the case of yeast and the problem of the recognition of the 3' splice site (3'ss).......In higher eukaryotes, alternative splicing is usually regulated by protein factors, which bind to the pre-mRNA and affect the recognition of splicing signals. There is recent evidence that the secondary structure of the pre-mRNA may also play an important role in this process, either...

High-Throughput Sequencing Based Methods of RNA Structure Investigation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kielpinski, Lukasz Jan

In this thesis we describe the development of four related methods for RNA structure probing that utilize massive parallel sequencing. Using them, we were able to gather structural data for multiple, long molecules simultaneously. First, we have established an easy to follow experimental...... and computational protocol for detecting the reverse transcription termination sites (RTTS-Seq). This protocol was subsequently applied to hydroxyl radical footprinting of three dimensional RNA structures to give a probing signal that correlates well with the RNA backbone solvent accessibility. Moreover, we applied...

RNA versatility, flexibility, and thermostability for practice in RNA nanotechnology and biomedical applications.

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Haque, Farzin; Pi, Fengmei; Zhao, Zhengyi; Gu, Shanqing; Hu, Haibo; Yu, Hang; Guo, Peixuan

2018-01-01

In recent years, RNA has attracted widespread attention as a unique biomaterial with distinct biophysical properties for designing sophisticated architectures in the nanometer scale. RNA is much more versatile in structure and function with higher thermodynamic stability compared to its nucleic acid counterpart DNA. Larger RNA molecules can be viewed as a modular structure built from a combination of many 'Lego' building blocks connected via different linker sequences. By exploiting the diversity of RNA motifs and flexibility of structure, varieties of RNA architectures can be fabricated with precise control of shape, size, and stoichiometry. Many structural motifs have been discovered and characterized over the years and the crystal structures of many of these motifs are available for nanoparticle construction. For example, using the flexibility and versatility of RNA structure, RNA triangles, squares, pentagons, and hexagons can be constructed from phi29 pRNA three-way-junction (3WJ) building block. This review will focus on 2D RNA triangles, squares, and hexamers; 3D and 4D structures built from basic RNA building blocks; and their prospective applications in vivo as imaging or therapeutic agents via specific delivery and targeting. Methods for intracellular cloning and expression of RNA molecules and the in vivo assembly of RNA nanoparticles will also be reviewed. WIREs RNA 2018, 9:e1452. doi: 10.1002/wrna.1452 This article is categorized under: RNA Methods > RNA Nanotechnology RNA Structure and Dynamics > RNA Structure, Dynamics and Chemistry RNA in Disease and Development > RNA in Disease Regulatory RNAs/RNAi/Riboswitches > Regulatory RNAs. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Sequence-specific bias correction for RNA-seq data using recurrent neural networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Yao-Zhong; Yamaguchi, Rui; Imoto, Seiya; Miyano, Satoru

2017-01-25

The recent success of deep learning techniques in machine learning and artificial intelligence has stimulated a great deal of interest among bioinformaticians, who now wish to bring the power of deep learning to bare on a host of bioinformatical problems. Deep learning is ideally suited for biological problems that require automatic or hierarchical feature representation for biological data when prior knowledge is limited. In this work, we address the sequence-specific bias correction problem for RNA-seq data redusing Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) to model nucleotide sequences without pre-determining sequence structures. The sequence-specific bias of a read is then calculated based on the sequence probabilities estimated by RNNs, and used in the estimation of gene abundance. We explore the application of two popular RNN recurrent units for this task and demonstrate that RNN-based approaches provide a flexible way to model nucleotide sequences without knowledge of predetermined sequence structures. Our experiments show that training a RNN-based nucleotide sequence model is efficient and RNN-based bias correction methods compare well with the-state-of-the-art sequence-specific bias correction method on the commonly used MAQC-III data set. RNNs provides an alternative and flexible way to calculate sequence-specific bias without explicitly pre-determining sequence structures.

Sequence-specific RNA Photocleavage by Single-stranded DNA in Presence of Riboflavin

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Zhao, Yongyun; Chen, Gangyi; Yuan, Yi; Li, Na; Dong, Juan; Huang, Xin; Cui, Xin; Tang, Zhuo

2015-10-01

Constant efforts have been made to develop new method to realize sequence-specific RNA degradation, which could cause inhibition of the expression of targeted gene. Herein, by using an unmodified short DNA oligonucleotide for sequence recognition and endogenic small molecue, vitamin B2 (riboflavin) as photosensitizer, we report a simple strategy to realize the sequence-specific photocleavage of targeted RNA. The DNA strand is complimentary to the target sequence to form DNA/RNA duplex containing a G•U wobble in the middle. The cleavage reaction goes through oxidative elimination mechanism at the nucleoside downstream of U of the G•U wobble in duplex to obtain unnatural RNA terminal, and the whole process is under tight control by using light as switch, which means the cleavage could be carried out according to specific spatial and temporal requirements. The biocompatibility of this method makes the DNA strand in combination with riboflavin a promising molecular tool for RNA manipulation.

Domain V of 23S rRNA contains all the structural elements necessary for recognition by the ErmE methyltransferase

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vester, B; Douthwaite, S

1994-01-01

investigated what structural elements in 23S rRNA are required for specific recognition by the ErmE methyltransferase. The ermE gene was cloned into R1 plasmid derivatives, providing a means of inducible expression in Escherichia coli. Expression of the methyltransferase in vivo confers resistance......, and the enzyme efficiently modifies 23S rRNA in vitro. Removal of most of the 23S rRNA structure, so that only domain V (nucleotides 2000 to 2624) remains, does not affect the efficiency of modification by the methyltransferase. In addition, modification still occurs after the rRNA tertiary structure has been...

The identification and functional annotation of RNA structures conserved in vertebrates

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Seemann, Ernst Stefan; Mirza, Aashiq Hussain; Hansen, Claus

2017-01-01

Structured elements of RNA molecules are essential in, e.g., RNA stabilization, localization and protein interaction, and their conservation across species suggests a common functional role. We computationally screened vertebrate genomes for Conserved RNA Structures (CRSs), leveraging structure...... (RBPs) or (ii) are transcribed in corresponding tissues. Additionally, a CaptureSeq experiment revealed expression of many of our CRS regions in human fetal brain, including 662 novel ones. For selected human and mouse candidate pairs, qRT-PCR and in vitro RNA structure probing supported both shared...... expression and shared structure despite low abundance and low sequence identity. About 30k CRS regions are located near coding or long non-coding RNA genes or within enhancers. Structured (CRS overlapping) enhancer RNAs and extended 3' ends have significantly increased expression levels over their non-structured...

Nuclear TRIM25 Specifically Targets Influenza Virus Ribonucleoproteins to Block the Onset of RNA Chain Elongation.

Science.gov (United States)

Meyerson, Nicholas R; Zhou, Ligang; Guo, Yusong R; Zhao, Chen; Tao, Yizhi J; Krug, Robert M; Sawyer, Sara L

2017-11-08

TRIM25 is an E3 ubiquitin ligase that activates RIG-I to promote the antiviral interferon response. The NS1 protein from all strains of influenza A virus binds TRIM25, although not all virus strains block the interferon response, suggesting alternative mechanisms for TRIM25 action. Here we present a nuclear role for TRIM25 in specifically restricting influenza A virus replication. TRIM25 inhibits viral RNA synthesis through a direct mechanism that is independent of its ubiquitin ligase activity and the interferon pathway. This activity can be inhibited by the viral NS1 protein. TRIM25 inhibition of viral RNA synthesis results from its binding to viral ribonucleoproteins (vRNPs), the structures containing individual viral RNA segments, the viral polymerase, and multiple viral nucleoproteins. TRIM25 binding does not inhibit initiation of capped-RNA-primed viral mRNA synthesis by the viral polymerase. Rather, the onset of RNA chain elongation is inhibited because TRIM25 prohibits the movement of RNA into the polymerase complex. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

BEAM web server: a tool for structural RNA motif discovery.

Science.gov (United States)

Pietrosanto, Marco; Adinolfi, Marta; Casula, Riccardo; Ausiello, Gabriele; Ferrè, Fabrizio; Helmer-Citterich, Manuela

2018-03-15

RNA structural motif finding is a relevant problem that becomes computationally hard when working on high-throughput data (e.g. eCLIP, PAR-CLIP), often represented by thousands of RNA molecules. Currently, the BEAM server is the only web tool capable to handle tens of thousands of RNA in input with a motif discovery procedure that is only limited by the current secondary structure prediction accuracies. The recently developed method BEAM (BEAr Motifs finder) can analyze tens of thousands of RNA molecules and identify RNA secondary structure motifs associated to a measure of their statistical significance. BEAM is extremely fast thanks to the BEAR encoding that transforms each RNA secondary structure in a string of characters. BEAM also exploits the evolutionary knowledge contained in a substitution matrix of secondary structure elements, extracted from the RFAM database of families of homologous RNAs. The BEAM web server has been designed to streamline data pre-processing by automatically handling folding and encoding of RNA sequences, giving users a choice for the preferred folding program. The server provides an intuitive and informative results page with the list of secondary structure motifs identified, the logo of each motif, its significance, graphic representation and information about its position in the RNA molecules sharing it. The web server is freely available at http://beam.uniroma2.it/ and it is implemented in NodeJS and Python with all major browsers supported. marco.pietrosanto@uniroma2.it. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Reconstruction of ancestral RNA sequences under multiple structural constraints

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Olivier Tremblay-Savard

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Secondary structures form the scaffold of multiple sequence alignment of non-coding RNA (ncRNA families. An accurate reconstruction of ancestral ncRNAs must use this structural signal. However, the inference of ancestors of a single ncRNA family with a single consensus structure may bias the results towards sequences with high affinity to this structure, which are far from the true ancestors. Methods In this paper, we introduce achARNement, a maximum parsimony approach that, given two alignments of homologous ncRNA families with consensus secondary structures and a phylogenetic tree, simultaneously calculates ancestral RNA sequences for these two families. Results We test our methodology on simulated data sets, and show that achARNement outperforms classical maximum parsimony approaches in terms of accuracy, but also reduces by several orders of magnitude the number of candidate sequences. To conclude this study, we apply our algorithms on the Glm clan and the FinP-traJ clan from the Rfam database. Conclusions Our results show that our methods reconstruct small sets of high-quality candidate ancestors with better agreement to the two target structures than with classical approaches. Our program is freely available at: http://csb.cs.mcgill.ca/acharnement .

Automated identification of RNA 3D modules with discriminative power in RNA structural alignments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Theis, Corinna; Höner zu Siederdissen, Christian; Hofacker, Ivo L.

2013-01-01

Recent progress in predicting RNA structure is moving towards filling the 'gap' in 2D RNA structure prediction where, for example, predicted internal loops often form non-canonical base pairs. This is increasingly recognized with the steady increase of known RNA 3D modules. There is a general...... comparative evidence. Subsequently, the modules, initially represented by a graph, are turned into models for the RMDetect program, which allows to test their discriminative power using real and randomized Rfam alignments. An initial extraction of 22495 3D modules in all PDB files results in 977 internal loop...

Screening for sequence-specific RNA-BPs by comprehensive UV crosslinking

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Le Meuth-Metzinger Valerie

2002-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Specific cis-elements and the associated trans-acting factors have been implicated in the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. In the era of genome wide analyses identifying novel trans-acting factors and cis-regulatory elements is a step towards understanding coordinated gene expression. UV-crosslink analysis is a standard method used to identify RNA-binding proteins. Uridine is traditionally used to radiolabel substrate RNAs, however, proteins binding to cis-elments particularly uridine poor will be weakly or not detected. We evaluate here the possibility of using UV-crosslinking with RNA substrates radiolabeled with each of the four ribonucleotides as an approach for screening for novel sequence specific RNA-binding proteins. Results The radiolabeled RNA substrates were derived from the 3'UTRs of the cloned Eg and c-mos Xenopus laevis maternal mRNAs. Specific, but not identical, uv-crosslinking signals were obtained, some of which corresponded to already identified proteins. A signal for a novel 90 kDa protein was observed with the c-mos 3'UTR radiolabeled with both CTP and GTP but not with UTP. The binding site of the 90 kDa RNA-binding protein was localised to a 59-nucleotide portion of the c-mos 3'UTR. Conclusion That the 90 kDa signal was detected with RNAs radiolabeled with CTP or GTP but not UTP illustrates the advantage of radiolabeling all four nucleotides in a UV-crosslink based screen. This method can be used for both long and short RNAs and does not require knowledge of the cis-acting sequence. It should be amenable to high throughput screening for RNA binding proteins.

Retroviral RNA Dimerization: From Structure to Functions

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Noé Dubois

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The genome of the retroviruses is a dimer composed by two homologous copies of genomic RNA (gRNA molecules of positive polarity. The dimerization process allows two gRNA molecules to be non-covalently linked together through intermolecular base-pairing. This step is critical for the viral life cycle and is highly conserved among retroviruses with the exception of spumaretroviruses. Furthermore, packaging of two gRNA copies into viral particles presents an important evolutionary advantage for immune system evasion and drug resistance. Recent studies reported RNA switches models regulating not only gRNA dimerization, but also translation and packaging, and a spatio-temporal characterization of viral gRNA dimerization within cells are now at hand. This review summarizes our current understanding on the structural features of the dimerization signals for a variety of retroviruses (HIVs, MLV, RSV, BLV, MMTV, MPMV…, the mechanisms of RNA dimer formation and functional implications in the retroviral cycle.

Evolving stochastic context-free grammars for RNA secondary structure prediction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Anderson, James WJ; Tataru, Paula Cristina; Stains, Joe

2012-01-01

Background Stochastic Context-Free Grammars (SCFGs) were applied successfully to RNA secondary structure prediction in the early 90s, and used in combination with comparative methods in the late 90s. The set of SCFGs potentially useful for RNA secondary structure prediction is very large, but a few...... to structure prediction as has been previously suggested. Results These search techniques were applied to predict RNA secondary structure on a maximal data set and revealed new and interesting grammars, though none are dramatically better than classic grammars. In general, results showed that many grammars...... with quite different structure could have very similar predictive ability. Many ambiguous grammars were found which were at least as effective as the best current unambiguous grammars. Conclusions Overall the method of evolving SCFGs for RNA secondary structure prediction proved effective in finding many...

ConStruct: Improved construction of RNA consensus structures

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Steger Gerhard

2008-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Aligning homologous non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs correctly in terms of sequence and structure is an unresolved problem, due to both mathematical complexity and imperfect scoring functions. High quality alignments, however, are a prerequisite for most consensus structure prediction approaches, homology searches, and tools for phylogeny inference. Automatically created ncRNA alignments often need manual corrections, yet this manual refinement is tedious and error-prone. Results We present an extended version of CONSTRUCT, a semi-automatic, graphical tool suitable for creating RNA alignments correct in terms of both consensus sequence and consensus structure. To this purpose CONSTRUCT combines sequence alignment, thermodynamic data and various measures of covariation. One important feature is that the user is guided during the alignment correction step by a consensus dotplot, which displays all thermodynamically optimal base pairs and the corresponding covariation. Once the initial alignment is corrected, optimal and suboptimal secondary structures as well as tertiary interaction can be predicted. We demonstrate CONSTRUCT's ability to guide the user in correcting an initial alignment, and show an example for optimal secondary consensus structure prediction on very hard to align SECIS elements. Moreover we use CONSTRUCT to predict tertiary interactions from sequences of the internal ribosome entry site of CrP-like viruses. In addition we show that alignments specifically designed for benchmarking can be easily be optimized using CONSTRUCT, although they share very little sequence identity. Conclusion CONSTRUCT's graphical interface allows for an easy alignment correction based on and guided by predicted and known structural constraints. It combines several algorithms for prediction of secondary consensus structure and even tertiary interactions. The CONSTRUCT package can be downloaded from the URL listed in the Availability and

RNA secondary structure prediction with pseudoknots: Contribution of algorithm versus energy model.

Science.gov (United States)

Jabbari, Hosna; Wark, Ian; Montemagno, Carlo

2018-01-01

RNA is a biopolymer with various applications inside the cell and in biotechnology. Structure of an RNA molecule mainly determines its function and is essential to guide nanostructure design. Since experimental structure determination is time-consuming and expensive, accurate computational prediction of RNA structure is of great importance. Prediction of RNA secondary structure is relatively simpler than its tertiary structure and provides information about its tertiary structure, therefore, RNA secondary structure prediction has received attention in the past decades. Numerous methods with different folding approaches have been developed for RNA secondary structure prediction. While methods for prediction of RNA pseudoknot-free structure (structures with no crossing base pairs) have greatly improved in terms of their accuracy, methods for prediction of RNA pseudoknotted secondary structure (structures with crossing base pairs) still have room for improvement. A long-standing question for improving the prediction accuracy of RNA pseudoknotted secondary structure is whether to focus on the prediction algorithm or the underlying energy model, as there is a trade-off on computational cost of the prediction algorithm versus the generality of the method. The aim of this work is to argue when comparing different methods for RNA pseudoknotted structure prediction, the combination of algorithm and energy model should be considered and a method should not be considered superior or inferior to others if they do not use the same scoring model. We demonstrate that while the folding approach is important in structure prediction, it is not the only important factor in prediction accuracy of a given method as the underlying energy model is also as of great value. Therefore we encourage researchers to pay particular attention in comparing methods with different energy models.

Structural Analysis of ‘key’ Interactions in Functional RNA Molecules

KAUST Repository

Chawla, Mohit

2018-04-01

The main objective of the thesis is to carry out structural bioinformatics study along with usage of advanced quantum chemical methods to look at the structural stability and energetics of RNA building blocks. The main focus of the work described here lies on understanding the reasons behind the intrinsic stability of key interactions in nucleic acids. Crystal structures of RNA molecules exhibit fascinating variety of non-covalent interactions, which play an important role in maintaining the three dimensional structures. An accurate atomic level description of these interactions in the structural building blocks of RNA is a key to understand the structure-function relationship in these molecules. An effort has been made to link the conclusions drawn from quantum chemical computations on RNA base pairs in wide biochemical context of their occurrence in RNA structures. The initial attention was on the impact of natural and non-natural modifications of the nucleic acid bases on the structure and stability of base pairs that they are involved in. In the remaining sections we cover other molecular interactions shaping nucleic acids, as the interaction between ribose and the bases, and the fluoride sensing riboswitch system in order to investigate structure and dynamics of nucleic acids at the atomic level and to gain insight into the physical chemistry behind.

Structural Analysis of ‘key’ Interactions in Functional RNA Molecules

KAUST Repository

Chawla, Mohit

2018-01-01

The main objective of the thesis is to carry out structural bioinformatics study along with usage of advanced quantum chemical methods to look at the structural stability and energetics of RNA building blocks. The main focus of the work described here lies on understanding the reasons behind the intrinsic stability of key interactions in nucleic acids. Crystal structures of RNA molecules exhibit fascinating variety of non-covalent interactions, which play an important role in maintaining the three dimensional structures. An accurate atomic level description of these interactions in the structural building blocks of RNA is a key to understand the structure-function relationship in these molecules. An effort has been made to link the conclusions drawn from quantum chemical computations on RNA base pairs in wide biochemical context of their occurrence in RNA structures. The initial attention was on the impact of natural and non-natural modifications of the nucleic acid bases on the structure and stability of base pairs that they are involved in. In the remaining sections we cover other molecular interactions shaping nucleic acids, as the interaction between ribose and the bases, and the fluoride sensing riboswitch system in order to investigate structure and dynamics of nucleic acids at the atomic level and to gain insight into the physical chemistry behind.

Community structure, cellular rRNA content, and activity of sulfate-reducing bacteria in marine Arctic sediments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ravenschlag, K.; Sahm, K.; Knoblauch, C.

2000-01-01

The community structure of sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) of a marine Arctic sediment (Smeerenburg-fjorden, Svalbard) a-as characterized by both fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and rRNA slot blot hybridization by using group- and genus-specific 16S rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes...... that FISH and rRNA slot blot hybridization gave comparable results. Furthermore, a combination of the two methods allowed us to calculate specific cellular rRNA contents with respect to localization in the sediment profile. The rRNA contents of Desulfosarcina-Desulfococcus cells were highest in the first 5...... mm of the sediment (0.9 and 1.4 fg, respectively) and decreased steeply with depth, indicating that maximal metabolic activity occurred close to the surface, Based on SRB cell numbers, cellular sulfate reduction rates were calculated. The rates were highest in the surface layer (0.14 fmol cell(-1...

Secondary structural entropy in RNA switch (Riboswitch) identification.

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Manzourolajdad, Amirhossein; Arnold, Jonathan

2015-04-28

RNA regulatory elements play a significant role in gene regulation. Riboswitches, a widespread group of regulatory RNAs, are vital components of many bacterial genomes. These regulatory elements generally function by forming a ligand-induced alternative fold that controls access to ribosome binding sites or other regulatory sites in RNA. Riboswitch-mediated mechanisms are ubiquitous across bacterial genomes. A typical class of riboswitch has its own unique structural and biological complexity, making de novo riboswitch identification a formidable task. Traditionally, riboswitches have been identified through comparative genomics based on sequence and structural homology. The limitations of structural-homology-based approaches, coupled with the assumption that there is a great diversity of undiscovered riboswitches, suggests the need for alternative methods for riboswitch identification, possibly based on features intrinsic to their structure. As of yet, no such reliable method has been proposed. We used structural entropy of riboswitch sequences as a measure of their secondary structural dynamics. Entropy values of a diverse set of riboswitches were compared to that of their mutants, their dinucleotide shuffles, and their reverse complement sequences under different stochastic context-free grammar folding models. Significance of our results was evaluated by comparison to other approaches, such as the base-pairing entropy and energy landscapes dynamics. Classifiers based on structural entropy optimized via sequence and structural features were devised as riboswitch identifiers and tested on Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, and Synechococcus elongatus as an exploration of structural entropy based approaches. The unusually long untranslated region of the cotH in Bacillus subtilis, as well as upstream regions of certain genes, such as the sucC genes were associated with significant structural entropy values in genome-wide examinations. Various tests show that there

Genome-scale characterization of RNA tertiary structures and their functional impact by RNA solvent accessibility prediction.

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Yang, Yuedong; Li, Xiaomei; Zhao, Huiying; Zhan, Jian; Wang, Jihua; Zhou, Yaoqi

2017-01-01

As most RNA structures are elusive to structure determination, obtaining solvent accessible surface areas (ASAs) of nucleotides in an RNA structure is an important first step to characterize potential functional sites and core structural regions. Here, we developed RNAsnap, the first machine-learning method trained on protein-bound RNA structures for solvent accessibility prediction. Built on sequence profiles from multiple sequence alignment (RNAsnap-prof), the method provided robust prediction in fivefold cross-validation and an independent test (Pearson correlation coefficients, r, between predicted and actual ASA values are 0.66 and 0.63, respectively). Application of the method to 6178 mRNAs revealed its positive correlation to mRNA accessibility by dimethyl sulphate (DMS) experimentally measured in vivo (r = 0.37) but not in vitro (r = 0.07), despite the lack of training on mRNAs and the fact that DMS accessibility is only an approximation to solvent accessibility. We further found strong association across coding and noncoding regions between predicted solvent accessibility of the mutation site of a single nucleotide variant (SNV) and the frequency of that variant in the population for 2.2 million SNVs obtained in the 1000 Genomes Project. Moreover, mapping solvent accessibility of RNAs to the human genome indicated that introns, 5' cap of 5' and 3' cap of 3' untranslated regions, are more solvent accessible, consistent with their respective functional roles. These results support conformational selections as the mechanism for the formation of RNA-protein complexes and highlight the utility of genome-scale characterization of RNA tertiary structures by RNAsnap. The server and its stand-alone downloadable version are available at http://sparks-lab.org. © 2016 Yang et al.; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the RNA Society.

Integrated analysis of RNA-binding protein complexes using in vitro selection and high-throughput sequencing and sequence specificity landscapes (SEQRS).

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Lou, Tzu-Fang; Weidmann, Chase A; Killingsworth, Jordan; Tanaka Hall, Traci M; Goldstrohm, Aaron C; Campbell, Zachary T

2017-04-15

RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) collaborate to control virtually every aspect of RNA function. Tremendous progress has been made in the area of global assessment of RBP specificity using next-generation sequencing approaches both in vivo and in vitro. Understanding how protein-protein interactions enable precise combinatorial regulation of RNA remains a significant problem. Addressing this challenge requires tools that can quantitatively determine the specificities of both individual proteins and multimeric complexes in an unbiased and comprehensive way. One approach utilizes in vitro selection, high-throughput sequencing, and sequence-specificity landscapes (SEQRS). We outline a SEQRS experiment focused on obtaining the specificity of a multi-protein complex between Drosophila RBPs Pumilio (Pum) and Nanos (Nos). We discuss the necessary controls in this type of experiment and examine how the resulting data can be complemented with structural and cell-based reporter assays. Additionally, SEQRS data can be integrated with functional genomics data to uncover biological function. Finally, we propose extensions of the technique that will enhance our understanding of multi-protein regulatory complexes assembled onto RNA. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Tissue-specific mRNA expression profiling in grape berry tissues

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Grimplet, Jerome; Deluc, Laurent G; Tillett, Richard L; Wheatley, Matthew D; Schlauch, Karen A; Cramer, Grant R; Cushman, John C

2007-01-01

Background Berries of grape (Vitis vinifera) contain three major tissue types (skin, pulp and seed) all of which contribute to the aroma, color, and flavor characters of wine. The pericarp, which is composed of the exocarp (skin) and mesocarp (pulp), not only functions to protect and feed the developing seed, but also to assist in the dispersal of the mature seed by avian and mammalian vectors. The skin provides volatile and nonvolatile aroma and color compounds, the pulp contributes organic acids and sugars, and the seeds provide condensed tannins, all of which are important to the formation of organoleptic characteristics of wine. In order to understand the transcriptional network responsible for controlling tissue-specific mRNA expression patterns, mRNA expression profiling was conducted on each tissue of mature berries of V. vinifera Cabernet Sauvignon using the Affymetrix GeneChip® Vitis oligonucleotide microarray ver. 1.0. In order to monitor the influence of water-deficit stress on tissue-specific expression patterns, mRNA expression profiles were also compared from mature berries harvested from vines subjected to well-watered or water-deficit conditions. Results Overall, berry tissues were found to express approximately 76% of genes represented on the Vitis microarray. Approximately 60% of these genes exhibited significant differential expression in one or more of the three major tissue types with more than 28% of genes showing pronounced (2-fold or greater) differences in mRNA expression. The largest difference in tissue-specific expression was observed between the seed and pulp/skin. Exocarp tissue, which is involved in pathogen defense and pigment production, showed higher mRNA abundance relative to other berry tissues for genes involved with flavonoid biosynthesis, pathogen resistance, and cell wall modification. Mesocarp tissue, which is considered a nutritive tissue, exhibited a higher mRNA abundance of genes involved in cell wall function and

Tissue-specific mRNA expression profiling in grape berry tissues

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cramer Grant R

2007-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Berries of grape (Vitis vinifera contain three major tissue types (skin, pulp and seed all of which contribute to the aroma, color, and flavor characters of wine. The pericarp, which is composed of the exocarp (skin and mesocarp (pulp, not only functions to protect and feed the developing seed, but also to assist in the dispersal of the mature seed by avian and mammalian vectors. The skin provides volatile and nonvolatile aroma and color compounds, the pulp contributes organic acids and sugars, and the seeds provide condensed tannins, all of which are important to the formation of organoleptic characteristics of wine. In order to understand the transcriptional network responsible for controlling tissue-specific mRNA expression patterns, mRNA expression profiling was conducted on each tissue of mature berries of V. vinifera Cabernet Sauvignon using the Affymetrix GeneChip® Vitis oligonucleotide microarray ver. 1.0. In order to monitor the influence of water-deficit stress on tissue-specific expression patterns, mRNA expression profiles were also compared from mature berries harvested from vines subjected to well-watered or water-deficit conditions. Results Overall, berry tissues were found to express approximately 76% of genes represented on the Vitis microarray. Approximately 60% of these genes exhibited significant differential expression in one or more of the three major tissue types with more than 28% of genes showing pronounced (2-fold or greater differences in mRNA expression. The largest difference in tissue-specific expression was observed between the seed and pulp/skin. Exocarp tissue, which is involved in pathogen defense and pigment production, showed higher mRNA abundance relative to other berry tissues for genes involved with flavonoid biosynthesis, pathogen resistance, and cell wall modification. Mesocarp tissue, which is considered a nutritive tissue, exhibited a higher mRNA abundance of genes involved in cell

RCK: accurate and efficient inference of sequence- and structure-based protein-RNA binding models from RNAcompete data.

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Orenstein, Yaron; Wang, Yuhao; Berger, Bonnie

2016-06-15

Protein-RNA interactions, which play vital roles in many processes, are mediated through both RNA sequence and structure. CLIP-based methods, which measure protein-RNA binding in vivo, suffer from experimental noise and systematic biases, whereas in vitro experiments capture a clearer signal of protein RNA-binding. Among them, RNAcompete provides binding affinities of a specific protein to more than 240 000 unstructured RNA probes in one experiment. The computational challenge is to infer RNA structure- and sequence-based binding models from these data. The state-of-the-art in sequence models, Deepbind, does not model structural preferences. RNAcontext models both sequence and structure preferences, but is outperformed by GraphProt. Unfortunately, GraphProt cannot detect structural preferences from RNAcompete data due to the unstructured nature of the data, as noted by its developers, nor can it be tractably run on the full RNACompete dataset. We develop RCK, an efficient, scalable algorithm that infers both sequence and structure preferences based on a new k-mer based model. Remarkably, even though RNAcompete data is designed to be unstructured, RCK can still learn structural preferences from it. RCK significantly outperforms both RNAcontext and Deepbind in in vitro binding prediction for 244 RNAcompete experiments. Moreover, RCK is also faster and uses less memory, which enables scalability. While currently on par with existing methods in in vivo binding prediction on a small scale test, we demonstrate that RCK will increasingly benefit from experimentally measured RNA structure profiles as compared to computationally predicted ones. By running RCK on the entire RNAcompete dataset, we generate and provide as a resource a set of protein-RNA structure-based models on an unprecedented scale. Software and models are freely available at http://rck.csail.mit.edu/ bab@mit.edu Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2016. Published by

The art of editing RNA structural alignments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Ebbe Sloth

2014-01-01

Manual editing of RNA structural alignments may be considered more art than science, since it still requires an expert biologist to take multiple levels of information into account and be slightly creative when constructing high-quality alignments. Even though the task is rather tedious, it is re......Manual editing of RNA structural alignments may be considered more art than science, since it still requires an expert biologist to take multiple levels of information into account and be slightly creative when constructing high-quality alignments. Even though the task is rather tedious...

Structure of Hepatitis C Virus Polymerase in Complex with Primer-Template RNA

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Mosley, Ralph T.; Edwards, Thomas E.; Murakami, Eisuke; Lam, Angela M.; Grice, Rena L.; Du, Jinfa; Sofia, Michael J.; Furman, Philip A.; Otto, Michael J. (Pharmasset); (Emerald)

2012-08-01

The replication of the hepatitis C viral (HCV) genome is accomplished by the NS5B RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), for which mechanistic understanding and structure-guided drug design efforts have been hampered by its propensity to crystallize in a closed, polymerization-incompetent state. The removal of an autoinhibitory {beta}-hairpin loop from genotype 2a HCV NS5B increases de novo RNA synthesis by >100-fold, promotes RNA binding, and facilitated the determination of the first crystallographic structures of HCV polymerase in complex with RNA primer-template pairs. These crystal structures demonstrate the structural realignment required for primer-template recognition and elongation, provide new insights into HCV RNA synthesis at the molecular level, and may prove useful in the structure-based design of novel antiviral compounds. Additionally, our approach for obtaining the RNA primer-template-bound structure of HCV polymerase may be generally applicable to solving RNA-bound complexes for other viral RdRps that contain similar regulatory {beta}-hairpin loops, including bovine viral diarrhea virus, dengue virus, and West Nile virus.

Investigation of RNA Structure by High-Throughput SHAPE-Based Probing Methods

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Poulsen, Line Dahl

of highthroughput SHAPE-based approaches to investigate RNA structure based on novel SHAPE reagents that permit selection of full-length cDNAs. The SHAPE Selection (SHAPES) method is applied to the foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) plus strand RNA genome, and the data is used to construct a genome-wide structural...... that they are functional. The SHAPES method is further applied to the hepatitis C virus (HCV), where the data is used to refine known and predicted structures. Over the past years, the interest of studying RNA structure in their native environment has been increased, and to allow studying RNA structure inside living cells...... using the SHAPE Selection approach, I introduce a biotinylated probing reagent. This chemical can cross cell membranes and reacts with RNA inside the cells, allowing the structural conformations to be studied in the context of physiological relevant conditions in living cells. The methods and results...

RNA-TVcurve: a Web server for RNA secondary structure comparison based on a multi-scale similarity of its triple vector curve representation.

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Li, Ying; Shi, Xiaohu; Liang, Yanchun; Xie, Juan; Zhang, Yu; Ma, Qin

2017-01-21

RNAs have been found to carry diverse functionalities in nature. Inferring the similarity between two given RNAs is a fundamental step to understand and interpret their functional relationship. The majority of functional RNAs show conserved secondary structures, rather than sequence conservation. Those algorithms relying on sequence-based features usually have limitations in their prediction performance. Hence, integrating RNA structure features is very critical for RNA analysis. Existing algorithms mainly fall into two categories: alignment-based and alignment-free. The alignment-free algorithms of RNA comparison usually have lower time complexity than alignment-based algorithms. An alignment-free RNA comparison algorithm was proposed, in which novel numerical representations RNA-TVcurve (triple vector curve representation) of RNA sequence and corresponding secondary structure features are provided. Then a multi-scale similarity score of two given RNAs was designed based on wavelet decomposition of their numerical representation. In support of RNA mutation and phylogenetic analysis, a web server (RNA-TVcurve) was designed based on this alignment-free RNA comparison algorithm. It provides three functional modules: 1) visualization of numerical representation of RNA secondary structure; 2) detection of single-point mutation based on secondary structure; and 3) comparison of pairwise and multiple RNA secondary structures. The inputs of the web server require RNA primary sequences, while corresponding secondary structures are optional. For the primary sequences alone, the web server can compute the secondary structures using free energy minimization algorithm in terms of RNAfold tool from Vienna RNA package. RNA-TVcurve is the first integrated web server, based on an alignment-free method, to deliver a suite of RNA analysis functions, including visualization, mutation analysis and multiple RNAs structure comparison. The comparison results with two popular RNA

Live Cell Genomics: RNA Exon-Specific RNA-Binding Protein Isolation.

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Bell, Thomas J; Eberwine, James

2015-01-01

RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are essential regulatory proteins that control all modes of RNA processing and regulation. New experimental approaches to isolate these indispensable proteins under in vivo conditions are needed to advance the field of RBP biology. Historically, in vitro biochemical approaches to isolate RBP complexes have been useful and productive, but biological relevance of the identified RBP complexes can be imprecise or erroneous. Here we review an inventive experimental to isolate RBPs under the in vivo conditions. The method is called peptide nucleic acid (PNA)-assisted identification of RBP (PAIR) technology and it uses cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) to deliver photo-activatible RBP-capture molecule to the cytoplasm of the live cells. The PAIR methodology provides two significant advantages over the most commonly used approaches: (1) it overcomes the in vitro limitation of standard biochemical approaches and (2) the PAIR RBP-capture molecule is highly selective and adaptable which allows investigators to isolate exon-specific RBP complexes. Most importantly, the in vivo capture conditions and selectivity of the RBP-capture molecule yield biologically accurate and relevant RBP data.

The identification and functional annotation of RNA structures conserved in vertebrates.

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Seemann, Stefan E; Mirza, Aashiq H; Hansen, Claus; Bang-Berthelsen, Claus H; Garde, Christian; Christensen-Dalsgaard, Mikkel; Torarinsson, Elfar; Yao, Zizhen; Workman, Christopher T; Pociot, Flemming; Nielsen, Henrik; Tommerup, Niels; Ruzzo, Walter L; Gorodkin, Jan

2017-08-01

Structured elements of RNA molecules are essential in, e.g., RNA stabilization, localization, and protein interaction, and their conservation across species suggests a common functional role. We computationally screened vertebrate genomes for conserved RNA structures (CRSs), leveraging structure-based, rather than sequence-based, alignments. After careful correction for sequence identity and GC content, we predict ∼516,000 human genomic regions containing CRSs. We find that a substantial fraction of human-mouse CRS regions (1) colocalize consistently with binding sites of the same RNA binding proteins (RBPs) or (2) are transcribed in corresponding tissues. Additionally, a CaptureSeq experiment revealed expression of many of our CRS regions in human fetal brain, including 662 novel ones. For selected human and mouse candidate pairs, qRT-PCR and in vitro RNA structure probing supported both shared expression and shared structure despite low abundance and low sequence identity. About 30,000 CRS regions are located near coding or long noncoding RNA genes or within enhancers. Structured (CRS overlapping) enhancer RNAs and extended 3' ends have significantly increased expression levels over their nonstructured counterparts. Our findings of transcribed uncharacterized regulatory regions that contain CRSs support their RNA-mediated functionality. © 2017 Seemann et al.; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

Structure of Pseudoknot PK26 Shows 3D Domain Swapping in an RNA

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Lietzke, Susan E; Barnes, Cindy L.

1998-01-01

3D domain swapping provides a facile pathway for the evolution of oligomeric proteins and allosteric mechanisms and a means for using monomer-oligomer equilibria to regulate biological activity. The term "3D domain swapping" describes the exchange of identical domains between two protein monomers to create an oligomer. 3D domain swapping has, so far, only been recognized in proteins. In this study, the structure of the pseudoknot PK26 is reported and it is a clear example of 3D domain swapping in RNA. PK26 was chosen for study because RNA pseudoknots are required structures in several biological processes and they arise frequently in in vitro selection experiments directed against protein targets. PK26 specifically inhibits HIV-1 reverse transcriptase with nanomolar affinity. We have now determined the 3.1 A resolution crystal structure of PK26 and find that it forms a 3D domain swapped dimer. PK26 shows extensive base pairing between and within strands. Formation of the dimer requires the linker region between the pseudoknot folds to adopt a unique conformation that allows a base within a helical stem to skip one base in the stacking register. Rearrangement of the linker would permit a monomeric pseudoknot to form. This structure shows how RNA can use 3D domain swapping to build large scale oligomers like the putative hexamer in the packaging RNA of bacteriophage Phi29.

MCTBI: a web server for predicting metal ion effects in RNA structures.

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Sun, Li-Zhen; Zhang, Jing-Xiang; Chen, Shi-Jie

2017-08-01

Metal ions play critical roles in RNA structure and function. However, web servers and software packages for predicting ion effects in RNA structures are notably scarce. Furthermore, the existing web servers and software packages mainly neglect ion correlation and fluctuation effects, which are potentially important for RNAs. We here report a new web server, the MCTBI server (http://rna.physics.missouri.edu/MCTBI), for the prediction of ion effects for RNA structures. This server is based on the recently developed MCTBI, a model that can account for ion correlation and fluctuation effects for nucleic acid structures and can provide improved predictions for the effects of metal ions, especially for multivalent ions such as Mg 2+ effects, as shown by extensive theory-experiment test results. The MCTBI web server predicts metal ion binding fractions, the most probable bound ion distribution, the electrostatic free energy of the system, and the free energy components. The results provide mechanistic insights into the role of metal ions in RNA structure formation and folding stability, which is important for understanding RNA functions and the rational design of RNA structures. © 2017 Sun et al.; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the RNA Society.

tRNA-like structure regulates translation of Brome mosaic virus RNA.

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Barends, Sharief; Rudinger-Thirion, Joëlle; Florentz, Catherine; Giegé, Richard; Pleij, Cornelis W A; Kraal, Barend

2004-04-01

For various groups of plant viruses, the genomic RNAs end with a tRNA-like structure (TLS) instead of the 3' poly(A) tail of common mRNAs. The actual function of these TLSs has long been enigmatic. Recently, however, it became clear that for turnip yellow mosaic virus, a tymovirus, the valylated TLS(TYMV) of the single genomic RNA functions as a bait for host ribosomes and directs them to the internal initiation site of translation (with N-terminal valine) of the second open reading frame for the polyprotein. This discovery prompted us to investigate whether the much larger TLSs of a different genus of viruses have a comparable function in translation. Brome mosaic virus (BMV), a bromovirus, has a tripartite RNA genome with a subgenomic RNA4 for coat protein expression. All four RNAs carry a highly conserved and bulky 3' TLS(BMV) (about 200 nucleotides) with determinants for tyrosylation. We discovered TLS(BMV)-catalyzed self-tyrosylation of the tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase but could not clearly detect tyrosine incorporation into any virus-encoded protein. We established that BMV proteins do not need TLS(BMV) tyrosylation for their initiation. However, disruption of the TLSs strongly reduced the translation of genomic RNA1, RNA2, and less strongly, RNA3, whereas coat protein expression from RNA4 remained unaffected. This aberrant translation could be partially restored by providing the TLS(BMV) in trans. Intriguingly, a subdomain of the TLS(BMV) could even almost fully restore translation to the original pattern. We discuss here a model with a central and dominant role for the TLS(BMV) during the BMV infection cycle.

Rapid NMR screening of RNA secondary structure and binding

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Helmling, Christina; Keyhani, Sara; Sochor, Florian; Fürtig, Boris; Hengesbach, Martin; Schwalbe, Harald

2015-01-01

Determination of RNA secondary structures by NMR spectroscopy is a useful tool e.g. to elucidate RNA folding space or functional aspects of regulatory RNA elements. However, current approaches of RNA synthesis and preparation are usually time-consuming and do not provide analysis with single nucleotide precision when applied for a large number of different RNA sequences. Here, we significantly improve the yield and 3′ end homogeneity of RNA preparation by in vitro transcription. Further, by establishing a native purification procedure with increased throughput, we provide a shortcut to study several RNA constructs simultaneously. We show that this approach yields μmol quantities of RNA with purities comparable to PAGE purification, while avoiding denaturation of the RNA

Rapid NMR screening of RNA secondary structure and binding

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Helmling, Christina; Keyhani, Sara; Sochor, Florian; Fürtig, Boris; Hengesbach, Martin; Schwalbe, Harald, E-mail: schwalbe@nmr.uni-frankfurt.de [Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Institut für Organische Chemie und Chemische Biologie, Center for Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance (BMRZ) (Germany)

2015-09-15

Determination of RNA secondary structures by NMR spectroscopy is a useful tool e.g. to elucidate RNA folding space or functional aspects of regulatory RNA elements. However, current approaches of RNA synthesis and preparation are usually time-consuming and do not provide analysis with single nucleotide precision when applied for a large number of different RNA sequences. Here, we significantly improve the yield and 3′ end homogeneity of RNA preparation by in vitro transcription. Further, by establishing a native purification procedure with increased throughput, we provide a shortcut to study several RNA constructs simultaneously. We show that this approach yields μmol quantities of RNA with purities comparable to PAGE purification, while avoiding denaturation of the RNA.

In vitro selection of RNA aptamer specific to Salmonella typhimurium.

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Han, Seung Ryul; Lee, Seong-Wook

2013-06-28

Salmonella is a major foodborne pathogen that causes a variety of human diseases. Development of ligands directly and specifically binding to the Salmonella will be crucial for the rapid detection of, and thus for efficient protection from, the virulent bacteria. In this study, we identified a RNA aptamer-based ligand that can specifically recognize Salmonella Typhimurium through SELEX technology. To this end, we isolated and characterized an RNase-resistant RNA aptamer that bound to the OmpC protein of Salmonella Typhimurium with high specificity and affinity (Kd ~ 20 nM). Of note, the selected aptamer was found to specifically bind to Salmonella Typhimurium, but neither to Gram-positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus) nor to other Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli O157:H7). This was evinced by aptamer-immobilized ELISA and aptamer-linked precipitation experiments. This Salmonella species-specific aptamer could be useful as a diagnostic ligand against pathogen-caused foodborne sickness.

Capturing alternative secondary structures of RNA by decomposition of base-pairing probabilities.

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Hagio, Taichi; Sakuraba, Shun; Iwakiri, Junichi; Mori, Ryota; Asai, Kiyoshi

2018-02-19

It is known that functional RNAs often switch their functions by forming different secondary structures. Popular tools for RNA secondary structures prediction, however, predict the single 'best' structures, and do not produce alternative structures. There are bioinformatics tools to predict suboptimal structures, but it is difficult to detect which alternative secondary structures are essential. We proposed a new computational method to detect essential alternative secondary structures from RNA sequences by decomposing the base-pairing probability matrix. The decomposition is calculated by a newly implemented software tool, RintW, which efficiently computes the base-pairing probability distributions over the Hamming distance from arbitrary reference secondary structures. The proposed approach has been demonstrated on ROSE element RNA thermometer sequence and Lysine RNA ribo-switch, showing that the proposed approach captures conformational changes in secondary structures. We have shown that alternative secondary structures are captured by decomposing base-paring probabilities over Hamming distance. Source code is available from http://www.ncRNA.org/RintW .

Structural Insights into the Methylation of C1402 in 16S rRNA by Methyltransferase RsmI.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohan Zhao

Full Text Available RsmI and RsmH are conserved S-Adenosylmethionine (AdoMet-dependent methyltransferases (MTases that are responsible for the 2'-O-methylation and N4-methylation of C1402 in bacterial 16S rRNA, respectively. Methylation of m4Cm1402 plays a role in fine-tuning the shape and functions of the P-site to increase the decoding fidelity, and was recently found to contribute to the virulence of Staphylococcus aureus in host animals. Here we report the 2.20-Å crystal structure of homodimeric RsmI from Escherichia coli in complex with the cofactor AdoMet. RsmI consists of an N-terminal putative RNA-binding domain (NTD and a C-terminal catalytic domain (CTD with a Rossmann-like fold, and belongs to the class III MTase family. AdoMet is specifically bound into a negatively charged deep pocket formed by both domains by making extensive contacts. Structure-based mutagenesis and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC assays revealed Asp100 and Ala124 are vital for AdoMet-binding. Although the overall fold of RsmI shows remarkable similarities to the characterized MTases involved in vitamin B12 biosynthesis, it exhibits a distinct charge distribution especially around the AdoMet-binding pocket because of different substrate specificity. The docking model of RsmI-AdoMet-RNA ternary complex suggested a possible base-flipping mechanism of the substrate RNA that has been observed in several known RNA MTases. Our structural and biochemical studies provide novel insights into the catalytic mechanism of C1402 methylation in 16S rRNA.

Simultaneous characterization of cellular RNA structure and function with in-cell SHAPE-Seq.

Science.gov (United States)

Watters, Kyle E; Abbott, Timothy R; Lucks, Julius B

2016-01-29

Many non-coding RNAs form structures that interact with cellular machinery to control gene expression. A central goal of molecular and synthetic biology is to uncover design principles linking RNA structure to function to understand and engineer this relationship. Here we report a simple, high-throughput method called in-cell SHAPE-Seq that combines in-cell probing of RNA structure with a measurement of gene expression to simultaneously characterize RNA structure and function in bacterial cells. We use in-cell SHAPE-Seq to study the structure-function relationship of two RNA mechanisms that regulate translation in Escherichia coli. We find that nucleotides that participate in RNA-RNA interactions are highly accessible when their binding partner is absent and that changes in RNA structure due to RNA-RNA interactions can be quantitatively correlated to changes in gene expression. We also characterize the cellular structures of three endogenously expressed non-coding RNAs: 5S rRNA, RNase P and the btuB riboswitch. Finally, a comparison between in-cell and in vitro folded RNA structures revealed remarkable similarities for synthetic RNAs, but significant differences for RNAs that participate in complex cellular interactions. Thus, in-cell SHAPE-Seq represents an easily approachable tool for biologists and engineers to uncover relationships between sequence, structure and function of RNAs in the cell. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Structural Chemistry of Human RNA Methyltransferases.

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Schapira, Matthieu

2016-03-18

RNA methyltransferases (RNMTs) play important roles in RNA stability, splicing, and epigenetic mechanisms. They constitute a promising target class that is underexplored by the medicinal chemistry community. Information of relevance to drug design can be extracted from the rich structural coverage of human RNMTs. In this work, the structural chemistry of this protein family is analyzed in depth. Unlike most methyltransferases, RNMTs generally feature a substrate-binding site that is largely open on the cofactor-binding pocket, favoring the design of bisubstrate inhibitors. Substrate purine or pyrimidines are often sandwiched between hydrophobic walls that can accommodate planar ring systems. When the substrate base is laying on a shallow surface, a 5' flanking base is sometimes anchored in a druggable cavity. The cofactor-binding site is structurally more diverse than in protein methyltransferases and more druggable in SPOUT than in Rossman-fold enzymes. Finally, conformational plasticity observed both at the substrate and cofactor binding sites may be a challenge for structure-based drug design. The landscape drawn here may inform ongoing efforts toward the discovery of the first human RNMT inhibitors.

RStrucFam: a web server to associate structure and cognate RNA for RNA-binding proteins from sequence information.

Science.gov (United States)

Ghosh, Pritha; Mathew, Oommen K; Sowdhamini, Ramanathan

2016-10-07

RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) interact with their cognate RNA(s) to form large biomolecular assemblies. They are versatile in their functionality and are involved in a myriad of processes inside the cell. RBPs with similar structural features and common biological functions are grouped together into families and superfamilies. It will be useful to obtain an early understanding and association of RNA-binding property of sequences of gene products. Here, we report a web server, RStrucFam, to predict the structure, type of cognate RNA(s) and function(s) of proteins, where possible, from mere sequence information. The web server employs Hidden Markov Model scan (hmmscan) to enable association to a back-end database of structural and sequence families. The database (HMMRBP) comprises of 437 HMMs of RBP families of known structure that have been generated using structure-based sequence alignments and 746 sequence-centric RBP family HMMs. The input protein sequence is associated with structural or sequence domain families, if structure or sequence signatures exist. In case of association of the protein with a family of known structures, output features like, multiple structure-based sequence alignment (MSSA) of the query with all others members of that family is provided. Further, cognate RNA partner(s) for that protein, Gene Ontology (GO) annotations, if any and a homology model of the protein can be obtained. The users can also browse through the database for details pertaining to each family, protein or RNA and their related information based on keyword search or RNA motif search. RStrucFam is a web server that exploits structurally conserved features of RBPs, derived from known family members and imprinted in mathematical profiles, to predict putative RBPs from sequence information. Proteins that fail to associate with such structure-centric families are further queried against the sequence-centric RBP family HMMs in the HMMRBP database. Further, all other essential

Structural Analysis of Monomeric RNA-Dependent Polymerases: Evolutionary and Therapeutic Implications.

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Rodrigo Jácome

Full Text Available The crystal structures of monomeric RNA-dependent RNA polymerases and reverse transcriptases of more than 20 different viruses are available in the Protein Data Bank. They all share the characteristic right-hand shape of DNA- and RNA polymerases formed by the fingers, palm and thumb subdomains, and, in many cases, "fingertips" that extend from the fingers towards the thumb subdomain, giving the viral enzyme a closed right-hand appearance. Six conserved structural motifs that contain key residues for the proper functioning of the enzyme have been identified in all these RNA-dependent polymerases. These enzymes share a two divalent metal-ion mechanism of polymerization in which two conserved aspartate residues coordinate the interactions with the metal ions to catalyze the nucleotidyl transfer reaction. The recent availability of crystal structures of polymerases of the Orthomyxoviridae and Bunyaviridae families allowed us to make pairwise comparisons of the tertiary structures of polymerases belonging to the four main RNA viral groups, which has led to a phylogenetic tree in which single-stranded negative RNA viral polymerases have been included for the first time. This has also allowed us to use a homology-based structural prediction approach to develop a general three-dimensional model of the Ebola virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. Our model includes several of the conserved structural motifs and residues described in other viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerases that define the catalytic and highly conserved palm subdomain, as well as portions of the fingers and thumb subdomains. The results presented here help to understand the current use and apparent success of antivirals, i.e. Brincidofovir, Lamivudine and Favipiravir, originally aimed at other types of polymerases, to counteract the Ebola virus infection.

Natural and artificial binders of polyriboadenylic acid and their effect on RNA structure

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Giovanni N. Roviello

2015-06-01

Full Text Available The employment of molecular tools with nucleic acid binding ability to specifically control crucial cellular functions represents an important scientific area at the border between biochemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry. In this review we describe several molecular systems of natural or artificial origin, which are able to bind polyriboadenylic acid (poly(rA both in its single-stranded or structured forms. Due to the fundamental role played by the poly(rA tail in the maturation and stability of mRNA, as well as in the initiation of the translation process, compounds able to bind this RNA tract, influencing the mRNA fate, are of special interest for developing innovative biomedical strategies mainly in the field of anticancer therapy.

Structure of Escherichia coli Arginyl-tRNA Synthetase in Complex with tRNAArg: Pivotal Role of the D-loop.

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Stephen, Preyesh; Ye, Sheng; Zhou, Ming; Song, Jian; Zhang, Rongguang; Wang, En-Duo; Giegé, Richard; Lin, Sheng-Xiang

2018-05-25

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases are essential components in protein biosynthesis. Arginyl-tRNA synthetase (ArgRS) belongs to the small group of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases requiring cognate tRNA for amino acid activation. The crystal structure of Escherichia coli (Eco) ArgRS has been solved in complex with tRNA Arg at 3.0-Å resolution. With this first bacterial tRNA complex, we are attempting to bridge the gap existing in structure-function understanding in prokaryotic tRNA Arg recognition. The structure shows a tight binding of tRNA on the synthetase through the identity determinant A20 from the D-loop, a tRNA recognition snapshot never elucidated structurally. This interaction of A20 involves 5 amino acids from the synthetase. Additional contacts via U20a and U16 from the D-loop reinforce the interaction. The importance of D-loop recognition in EcoArgRS functioning is supported by a mutagenesis analysis of critical amino acids that anchor tRNA Arg on the synthetase; in particular, mutations at amino acids interacting with A20 affect binding affinity to the tRNA and specificity of arginylation. Altogether the structural and functional data indicate that the unprecedented ArgRS crystal structure represents a snapshot during functioning and suggest that the recognition of the D-loop by ArgRS is an important trigger that anchors tRNA Arg on the synthetase. In this process, A20 plays a major role, together with prominent conformational changes in several ArgRS domains that may eventually lead to the mature ArgRS:tRNA complex and the arginine activation. Functional implications that could be idiosyncratic to the arginine identity of bacterial ArgRSs are discussed. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

TargetMiner: microRNA target prediction with systematic identification of tissue-specific negative examples.

Science.gov (United States)

Bandyopadhyay, Sanghamitra; Mitra, Ramkrishna

2009-10-15

Prediction of microRNA (miRNA) target mRNAs using machine learning approaches is an important area of research. However, most of the methods suffer from either high false positive or false negative rates. One reason for this is the marked deficiency of negative examples or miRNA non-target pairs. Systematic identification of non-target mRNAs is still not addressed properly, and therefore, current machine learning approaches are compelled to rely on artificially generated negative examples for training. In this article, we have identified approximately 300 tissue-specific negative examples using a novel approach that involves expression profiling of both miRNAs and mRNAs, miRNA-mRNA structural interactions and seed-site conservation. The newly generated negative examples are validated with pSILAC dataset, which elucidate the fact that the identified non-targets are indeed non-targets.These high-throughput tissue-specific negative examples and a set of experimentally verified positive examples are then used to build a system called TargetMiner, a support vector machine (SVM)-based classifier. In addition to assessing the prediction accuracy on cross-validation experiments, TargetMiner has been validated with a completely independent experimental test dataset. Our method outperforms 10 existing target prediction algorithms and provides a good balance between sensitivity and specificity that is not reflected in the existing methods. We achieve a significantly higher sensitivity and specificity of 69% and 67.8% based on a pool of 90 feature set and 76.5% and 66.1% using a set of 30 selected feature set on the completely independent test dataset. In order to establish the effectiveness of the systematically generated negative examples, the SVM is trained using a different set of negative data generated using the method in Yousef et al. A significantly higher false positive rate (70.6%) is observed when tested on the independent set, while all other factors are kept the

A 3'-end structure in RNA2 of a crinivirus is essential for viral RNA synthesis and contributes to replication-associated translation activity.

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Mongkolsiriwattana, Chawin; Zhou, Jaclyn S; Ng, James C K

2016-10-03

The terminal ends in the genome of RNA viruses contain features that regulate viral replication and/or translation. We have identified a Y-shaped structure (YSS) in the 3' terminal regions of the bipartite genome of Lettuce chlorosis virus (LCV), a member in the genus Crinivirus (family Closteroviridae). The YSS is the first in this family of viruses to be determined using Selective 2'-Hydroxyl Acylation Analyzed by Primer Extension (SHAPE). Using luciferase constructs/replicons, in vivo and in vitro assays showed that the 5' and YSS-containing 3' terminal regions of LCV RNA1 supported translation activity. In contrast, similar regions from LCV RNA2, including those upstream of the YSS, did not. LCV RNA2 mutants with nucleotide deletions or replacements that affected the YSS were replication deficient. In addition, the YSS of LCV RNA1 and RNA2 were interchangeable without affecting viral RNA synthesis. Translation and significant replication were observed for specific LCV RNA2 replicons only in the presence of LCV RNA1, but both processes were impaired when the YSS and/or its upstream region were incomplete or altered. These results are evidence that the YSS is essential to the viral replication machinery, and contributes to replication enhancement and replication-associated translation activity in the RNA2 replicons.

Structural explanation for the role of Mn2+ in the activity of phi6 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase.

Science.gov (United States)

Poranen, Minna M; Salgado, Paula S; Koivunen, Minni R L; Wright, Sam; Bamford, Dennis H; Stuart, David I; Grimes, Jonathan M

2008-11-01

The biological role of manganese (Mn(2+)) has been a long-standing puzzle, since at low concentrations it activates several polymerases whilst at higher concentrations it inhibits. Viral RNA polymerases possess a common architecture, reminiscent of a closed right hand. The RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) of bacteriophage 6 is one of the best understood examples of this important class of polymerases. We have probed the role of Mn(2+) by biochemical, biophysical and structural analyses of the wild-type enzyme and of a mutant form with an altered Mn(2+)-binding site (E491 to Q). The E491Q mutant has much reduced affinity for Mn(2+), reduced RNA binding and a compromised elongation rate. Loss of Mn(2+) binding structurally stabilizes the enzyme. These data and a re-examination of the structures of other viral RNA polymerases clarify the role of manganese in the activation of polymerization: Mn(2+) coordination of a catalytic aspartate is necessary to allow the active site to properly engage with the triphosphates of the incoming NTPs. The structural flexibility caused by Mn(2+) is also important for the enzyme dynamics, explaining the requirement for manganese throughout RNA polymerization.

Advances in RNA Structure Determination | Center for Cancer Research

Science.gov (United States)

The recent years have witnessed a revolution in the field of RNA structure and function. Until recently the main contribution of RNA in cellular and disease functions was considered to be a role defined by the central dogma, namely DNA codes for mRNAs, which in turn encode for proteins, a notion facilitated by non-coding ribosomal RNA and tRNA. It was also assumed at the time

Kinetic analysis of the effects of target structure on siRNA efficiency

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Jiawen; Zhang, Wenbing

2012-12-01

RNAi efficiency for target cleavage and protein expression is related to the target structure. Considering the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) as a multiple turnover enzyme, we investigated the effect of target mRNA structure on siRNA efficiency with kinetic analysis. The 4-step model was used to study the target cleavage kinetic process: hybridization nucleation at an accessible target site, RISC-mRNA hybrid elongation along with mRNA target structure melting, target cleavage, and enzyme reactivation. At this model, the terms accounting for the target accessibility, stability, and the seed and the nucleation site effects are all included. The results are in good agreement with that of experiments which show different arguments about the structure effects on siRNA efficiency. It shows that the siRNA efficiency is influenced by the integrated factors of target's accessibility, stability, and the seed effects. To study the off-target effects, a simple model of one siRNA binding to two mRNA targets was designed. By using this model, the possibility for diminishing the off-target effects by the concentration of siRNA was discussed.

Structural Studies of RNA Helicases Involved in Eukaryotic Pre-mRNA Splicing, Ribosome Biogenesis, and Translation Initiation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

He, Yangzi

and ligates the neighbouring exons to generate mature mRNAs. Prp43 is an RNA helicase of the DEAH/RHA family. In yeast, once mRNAs are released, Prp43 catalyzes the disassembly of spliceosomes. The 18S, 5.8S and 25S rRNAs are transcribed as a single polycistronic transcript—the 35S pre......-rRNA. It is nucleolytically cleaved and chemically modified to generate mature rRNAs, which assemble with ribosomal proteins to form the ribosome. Prp43 is required for the processing of the 18S rRNA. Using X-ray crystallography, I determined a high resolution structure of Prp43 bound to ADP, the first structure of a DEAH....../RHA helicase. It defined the conserved structural features of all DEAH/RHA helicases, and unveiled a novel nucleotide binding site. Additionally a preliminary low resolution structure of a ternary complex comprising Prp43, a non-hydrolyzable ATP analogue, and a single-stranded RNA, was obtained. The ribosome...

Labeling of eukaryotic messenger RNA 5' terminus with phosphorus -32: use of tobacco acid pyrophosphatase for removal of cap structures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lockard, R.E.; Rieser, L.; Vournakis, J.N.

1981-01-01

In recent years, there has been a growing appreciation of the potential applications of 5'- 32 P-end-labeled mRNA, not only for screening recombinant clones and mapping gene structure, but also for revealing possible nucleotide sequence and structural signals within mRNA molecules themselves, which may be important for eukaryotic mRNA processing and turnover and for controlling differential rates of translational initiation. Three major problems, however, have retarded progress in this area, lack of methods for efficient and reproducible removal of m7G5ppp5'-cap structures, which maintain the integrity of an RNA molecule; inability to generate a sufficient amount of labeled mRNA, owing to the limited availability of most pure mRNA species; and the frequent problem of RNA degradation during in vitro end-labeling owing to RNAse contamination. The procedures presented here permit one to decap and label minute quantities of mRNA, effectively. Tobacco acid pyrophosphatase is relatively efficient in removing cap structures from even nanogram quantities of available mRNA, and enough radioactivity can be easily generated from minute amounts ofintact mRNA with very high-specific-activity [gamma- 32 P]ATP and the inhibition of ribonuclease contamination with diethylpyrocarbonate. These procedures can be modified and applied to almost any other type of RNA molecule as well. In Section III of this volume, we explore in detail how effectively 5'-end-labeled mRNA can be used not only for nucleotide sequence analysis, but also for mapping mRNA secondary structure

Role and convergent evolution of competing RNA secondary structures in mutually exclusive splicing.

Science.gov (United States)

Yue, Yuan; Hou, Shouqing; Wang, Xiu; Zhan, Leilei; Cao, Guozheng; Li, Guoli; Shi, Yang; Zhang, Peng; Hong, Weiling; Lin, Hao; Liu, Baoping; Shi, Feng; Yang, Yun; Jin, Yongfeng

2017-10-03

Exon or cassette duplication is an important means of expanding protein and functional diversity through mutually exclusive splicing. However, the mechanistic basis of this process in non-arthropod species remains poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that MRP1 genes underwent tandem exon duplication in Nematoda, Platyhelminthes, Annelida, Mollusca, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, and early-diverging Chordata but not in late-diverging vertebrates. Interestingly, these events were of independent origin in different phyla, suggesting convergent evolution of alternative splicing. Furthermore, we showed that multiple sets of clade-conserved RNA pairings evolved to guide species-specific mutually exclusive splicing in Arthropoda. Importantly, we also identified a similar structural code in MRP exon clusters of the annelid, Capitella teleta, and chordate, Branchiostoma belcheri, suggesting an evolutionarily conserved competing pairing-guided mechanism in bilaterians. Taken together, these data reveal the molecular determinants and RNA pairing-guided evolution of species-specific mutually exclusive splicing spanning more than 600 million years of bilaterian evolution. These findings have a significant impact on our understanding of the evolution of and mechanism underpinning isoform diversity and complex gene structure.

Specific RNA Interference in Caenorhabditis elegans by Ingested dsRNA Expressed in Bacillus subtilis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lezzerini, M.; van de Ven, K.; Veerman, M.; Brul, S.; Budovskaya, Y.V.

2015-01-01

In nematodes, genome-wide RNAi-screening has been widely used as a rapid and efficient method to identify genes involved in the aging processes. By far the easiest way of inducing RNA interference (RNAi) in Caenorhabditis elegans is by feeding Escherichia coli that expresses specific double stranded

An efficient algorithm for planar drawing of RNA structures with pseudoknots of any type.

Science.gov (United States)

Byun, Yanga; Han, Kyungsook

2016-06-01

An RNA pseudoknot is a tertiary structural element in which bases of a loop pair with complementary bases are outside the loop. A drawing of RNA secondary structures is a tree, but a drawing of RNA pseudoknots is a graph that has an inner cycle within a pseudoknot and possibly outer cycles formed between the pseudoknot and other structural elements. Visualizing a large-scale RNA structure with pseudoknots as a planar drawing is challenging because a planar drawing of an RNA structure requires both pseudoknots and an entire structure enclosing the pseudoknots to be embedded into a plane without overlapping or crossing. This paper presents an efficient heuristic algorithm for visualizing a pseudoknotted RNA structure as a planar drawing. The algorithm consists of several parts for finding crossing stems and page mapping the stems, for the layout of stem-loops and pseudoknots, and for overlap detection between structural elements and resolving it. Unlike previous algorithms, our algorithm generates a planar drawing for a large RNA structure with pseudoknots of any type and provides a bracket view of the structure. It generates a compact and aesthetic structure graph for a large pseudoknotted RNA structure in O([Formula: see text]) time, where n is the number of stems of the RNA structure.

Rich RNA Structure Landscapes Revealed by Mutate-and-Map Analysis.

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Pablo Cordero

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Landscapes exhibiting multiple secondary structures arise in natural RNA molecules that modulate gene expression, protein synthesis, and viral infection [corrected]. We report herein that high-throughput chemical experiments can isolate an RNA's multiple alternative secondary structures as they are stabilized by systematic mutagenesis (mutate-and-map, M2 and that a computational algorithm, REEFFIT, enables unbiased reconstruction of these states' structures and populations. In an in silico benchmark on non-coding RNAs with complex landscapes, M2-REEFFIT recovers 95% of RNA helices present with at least 25% population while maintaining a low false discovery rate (10% and conservative error estimates. In experimental benchmarks, M2-REEFFIT recovers the structure landscapes of a 35-nt MedLoop hairpin, a 110-nt 16S rRNA four-way junction with an excited state, a 25-nt bistable hairpin, and a 112-nt three-state adenine riboswitch with its expression platform, molecules whose characterization previously required expert mutational analysis and specialized NMR or chemical mapping experiments. With this validation, M2-REEFFIT enabled tests of whether artificial RNA sequences might exhibit complex landscapes in the absence of explicit design. An artificial flavin mononucleotide riboswitch and a randomly generated RNA sequence are found to interconvert between three or more states, including structures for which there was no design, but that could be stabilized through mutations. These results highlight the likely pervasiveness of rich landscapes with multiple secondary structures in both natural and artificial RNAs and demonstrate an automated chemical/computational route for their empirical characterization.

Regression of hepatocarcinoma cells using RNA aptamer specific to alpha-fetoprotein

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Young Ju [Department of Molecular Biology, Institute of Nanosensor and Biotechnology, Dankook University, Yongin 448-701 (Korea, Republic of); Lee, Seong-Wook, E-mail: SWL0208@dankook.ac.kr [Department of Molecular Biology, Institute of Nanosensor and Biotechnology, Dankook University, Yongin 448-701 (Korea, Republic of)

2012-01-06

Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Identification of RNA aptamer specific to AFP with high affinity. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Specific induction of HCC proliferation by AFP. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Efficient increase in oncogene expression by AFP. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Efficient inhibition of AFP-mediated HCC proliferation by the aptamer. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Efficient suppression of AFP-induced oncogene expression of by the aptamer. -- Abstract: Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) is a cancer-associated fetal protein and has long been utilized as a serum fetal defect/tumor marker to monitor distress/disease progression. In addition, AFP is closely associated with the proliferation of hepatocellular carcinoma. Thus, direct targeting of AFP has been recommended for a therapeutic strategy against hepatocellular carcinoma. In this study, we developed and characterized an RNA aptamer that specifically bound to the alpha-fetoprotein using SELEX technology. The aptamer interacted with the AFP with a K{sub D} of {approx}33 nM. Importantly, the identified aptamer specifically and efficiently inhibited the AFP-mediated proliferation of hepatocarcinoma cells in a dose dependent manner. Moreover, the aptamer efficiently down-regulated AFP-induced expression of oncogenes in the cells. These results indicate that an AFP-specific RNA aptamer could be a useful therapeutic and diagnostic agent against AFP-related hepatocellular carcinoma.

Regression of hepatocarcinoma cells using RNA aptamer specific to alpha-fetoprotein

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Young Ju; Lee, Seong-Wook

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► Identification of RNA aptamer specific to AFP with high affinity. ► Specific induction of HCC proliferation by AFP. ► Efficient increase in oncogene expression by AFP. ► Efficient inhibition of AFP-mediated HCC proliferation by the aptamer. ► Efficient suppression of AFP-induced oncogene expression of by the aptamer. -- Abstract: Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) is a cancer-associated fetal protein and has long been utilized as a serum fetal defect/tumor marker to monitor distress/disease progression. In addition, AFP is closely associated with the proliferation of hepatocellular carcinoma. Thus, direct targeting of AFP has been recommended for a therapeutic strategy against hepatocellular carcinoma. In this study, we developed and characterized an RNA aptamer that specifically bound to the alpha-fetoprotein using SELEX technology. The aptamer interacted with the AFP with a K D of ∼33 nM. Importantly, the identified aptamer specifically and efficiently inhibited the AFP-mediated proliferation of hepatocarcinoma cells in a dose dependent manner. Moreover, the aptamer efficiently down-regulated AFP-induced expression of oncogenes in the cells. These results indicate that an AFP-specific RNA aptamer could be a useful therapeutic and diagnostic agent against AFP-related hepatocellular carcinoma.

Computing the Partition Function for Kinetically Trapped RNA Secondary Structures

Science.gov (United States)

Lorenz, William A.; Clote, Peter

2011-01-01

An RNA secondary structure is locally optimal if there is no lower energy structure that can be obtained by the addition or removal of a single base pair, where energy is defined according to the widely accepted Turner nearest neighbor model. Locally optimal structures form kinetic traps, since any evolution away from a locally optimal structure must involve energetically unfavorable folding steps. Here, we present a novel, efficient algorithm to compute the partition function over all locally optimal secondary structures of a given RNA sequence. Our software, RNAlocopt runs in time and space. Additionally, RNAlocopt samples a user-specified number of structures from the Boltzmann subensemble of all locally optimal structures. We apply RNAlocopt to show that (1) the number of locally optimal structures is far fewer than the total number of structures – indeed, the number of locally optimal structures approximately equal to the square root of the number of all structures, (2) the structural diversity of this subensemble may be either similar to or quite different from the structural diversity of the entire Boltzmann ensemble, a situation that depends on the type of input RNA, (3) the (modified) maximum expected accuracy structure, computed by taking into account base pairing frequencies of locally optimal structures, is a more accurate prediction of the native structure than other current thermodynamics-based methods. The software RNAlocopt constitutes a technical breakthrough in our study of the folding landscape for RNA secondary structures. For the first time, locally optimal structures (kinetic traps in the Turner energy model) can be rapidly generated for long RNA sequences, previously impossible with methods that involved exhaustive enumeration. Use of locally optimal structure leads to state-of-the-art secondary structure prediction, as benchmarked against methods involving the computation of minimum free energy and of maximum expected accuracy. Web server

Computing the partition function for kinetically trapped RNA secondary structures.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

William A Lorenz

Full Text Available An RNA secondary structure is locally optimal if there is no lower energy structure that can be obtained by the addition or removal of a single base pair, where energy is defined according to the widely accepted Turner nearest neighbor model. Locally optimal structures form kinetic traps, since any evolution away from a locally optimal structure must involve energetically unfavorable folding steps. Here, we present a novel, efficient algorithm to compute the partition function over all locally optimal secondary structures of a given RNA sequence. Our software, RNAlocopt runs in O(n3 time and O(n2 space. Additionally, RNAlocopt samples a user-specified number of structures from the Boltzmann subensemble of all locally optimal structures. We apply RNAlocopt to show that (1 the number of locally optimal structures is far fewer than the total number of structures--indeed, the number of locally optimal structures approximately equal to the square root of the number of all structures, (2 the structural diversity of this subensemble may be either similar to or quite different from the structural diversity of the entire Boltzmann ensemble, a situation that depends on the type of input RNA, (3 the (modified maximum expected accuracy structure, computed by taking into account base pairing frequencies of locally optimal structures, is a more accurate prediction of the native structure than other current thermodynamics-based methods. The software RNAlocopt constitutes a technical breakthrough in our study of the folding landscape for RNA secondary structures. For the first time, locally optimal structures (kinetic traps in the Turner energy model can be rapidly generated for long RNA sequences, previously impossible with methods that involved exhaustive enumeration. Use of locally optimal structure leads to state-of-the-art secondary structure prediction, as benchmarked against methods involving the computation of minimum free energy and of maximum expected

Site specific incorporation of heavy atom-containing unnatural amino acids into proteins for structure determination

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Jianming [San Diego, CA; Wang, Lei [San Diego, CA; Wu, Ning [Boston, MA; Schultz, Peter G [La Jolla, CA

2008-07-15

Translation systems and other compositions including orthogonal aminoacyl tRNA-synthetases that preferentially charge an orthogonal tRNA with an iodinated or brominated amino acid are provided. Nucleic acids encoding such synthetases are also described, as are methods and kits for producing proteins including heavy atom-containing amino acids, e.g., brominated or iodinated amino acids. Methods of determining the structure of a protein, e.g., a protein into which a heavy atom has been site-specifically incorporated through use of an orthogonal tRNA/aminoacyl tRNA-synthetase pair, are also described.

Fragile X mental retardation protein recognizes a G quadruplex structure within the survival motor neuron domain containing 1 mRNA 5'-UTR.

Science.gov (United States)

McAninch, Damian S; Heinaman, Ashley M; Lang, Cara N; Moss, Kathryn R; Bassell, Gary J; Rita Mihailescu, Mihaela; Evans, Timothy L

2017-07-25

G quadruplex structures have been predicted by bioinformatics to form in the 5'- and 3'-untranslated regions (UTRs) of several thousand mature mRNAs and are believed to play a role in translation regulation. Elucidation of these roles has primarily been focused on the 3'-UTR, with limited focus on characterizing the G quadruplex structures and functions in the 5'-UTR. Investigation of the affinity and specificity of RNA binding proteins for 5'-UTR G quadruplexes and the resulting regulatory effects have also been limited. Among the mRNAs predicted to form a G quadruplex structure within the 5'-UTR is the survival motor neuron domain containing 1 (SMNDC1) mRNA, encoding a protein that is critical to the spliceosome. Additionally, this mRNA has been identified as a potential target of the fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP), whose loss of expression leads to fragile X syndrome. FMRP is an RNA binding protein involved in translation regulation that has been shown to bind mRNA targets that form G quadruplex structures. In this study we have used biophysical methods to investigate G quadruplex formation in the 5'-UTR of SMNDC1 mRNA and analyzed its interactions with FMRP. Our results show that SMNDC1 mRNA 5'-UTR forms an intramolecular, parallel G quadruplex structure comprised of three G quartet planes, which is bound specifically by FMRP both in vitro and in mouse brain lysates. These findings suggest a model by which FMRP might regulate the translation of a subset of its mRNA targets by recognizing the G quadruplex structure present in their 5'-UTR, and affecting their accessibility by the protein synthesis machinery.

A combinatorial enumeration problem of RNA secondary structures

African Journals Online (AJOL)

use

2011-12-21

Dec 21, 2011 ... interesting combinatorial questions (Chen et al., 2005;. Liu, 2006; Schmitt and Waterman 1994; Stein and. Waterman 1978). The research on the enumeration of. RNA secondary structures becomes one of the hot topics in Computational Molecular Biology. An RNA molecule is described by its sequences of.

The crystal structure and RNA-binding of an orthomyxovirus nucleoprotein.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wenjie Zheng

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Genome packaging for viruses with segmented genomes is often a complex problem. This is particularly true for influenza viruses and other orthomyxoviruses, whose genome consists of multiple negative-sense RNAs encapsidated as ribonucleoprotein (RNP complexes. To better understand the structural features of orthomyxovirus RNPs that allow them to be packaged, we determined the crystal structure of the nucleoprotein (NP of a fish orthomyxovirus, the infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAV (genus Isavirus. As the major protein component of the RNPs, ISAV-NP possesses a bi-lobular structure similar to the influenza virus NP. Because both RNA-free and RNA-bound ISAV NP forms stable dimers in solution, we were able to measure the NP RNA binding affinity as well as the stoichiometry using recombinant proteins and synthetic oligos. Our RNA binding analysis revealed that each ISAV-NP binds ~12 nts of RNA, shorter than the 24-28 nts originally estimated for the influenza A virus NP based on population average. The 12-nt stoichiometry was further confirmed by results from electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. Considering that RNPs of ISAV and the influenza viruses have similar morphologies and dimensions, our findings suggest that NP-free RNA may exist on orthomyxovirus RNPs, and selective RNP packaging may be accomplished through direct RNA-RNA interactions.

The modeled structure of the RNA dependent RNA polymerase of GBV-C Virus suggests a role for motif E in Flaviviridae RNA polymerases

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Dutartre Hélène

2005-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The Flaviviridae virus family includes major human and animal pathogens. The RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp plays a central role in the replication process, and thus is a validated target for antiviral drugs. Despite the increasing structural and enzymatic characterization of viral RdRps, detailed molecular replication mechanisms remain unclear. The hepatitis C virus (HCV is a major human pathogen difficult to study in cultured cells. The bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV is often used as a surrogate model to screen antiviral drugs against HCV. The structure of BVDV RdRp has been recently published. It presents several differences relative to HCV RdRp. These differences raise questions about the relevance of BVDV as a surrogate model, and cast novel interest on the "GB" virus C (GBV-C. Indeed, GBV-C is genetically closer to HCV than BVDV, and can lead to productive infection of cultured cells. There is no structural data for the GBV-C RdRp yet. Results We show in this study that the GBV-C RdRp is closest to the HCV RdRp. We report a 3D model of the GBV-C RdRp, developed using sequence-to-structure threading and comparative modeling based on the atomic coordinates of the HCV RdRp structure. Analysis of the predicted structural features in the phylogenetic context of the RNA polymerase family allows rationalizing most of the experimental data available. Both available structures and our model are explored to examine the catalytic cleft, allosteric and substrate binding sites. Conclusion Computational methods were used to infer evolutionary relationships and to predict the structure of a viral RNA polymerase. Docking a GTP molecule into the structure allows defining a GTP binding pocket in the GBV-C RdRp, such as that of BVDV. The resulting model suggests a new proposition for the mechanism of RNA synthesis, and may prove useful to design new experiments to implement our knowledge on the initiation mechanism of RNA

Investigation of RNA structure in satellite panicum mosaic virus

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Makino, D.L.; Day, J.; Larson, S.B.; McPherson, A.

2006-01-01

Three new crystal forms of satellite panicum mosaic virus (SPMV) were grown and their structures solved from X-ray diffraction data using molecular replacement techniques. The crystals were grown under conditions of pH and ionic strength that were appreciably different then those used for the original structure determination. In rhombohedral crystals grown at pH 8.5 and low ionic strength PEG 3350 solutions, Fourier syntheses revealed segments, ten amino acid residues long, of amino-terminal polypeptides not previously seen, as well as masses of electron density within concavities on the interior of the capsid, which appeared in the neighborhoods of icosahedral five- and threefold axes. The densities were compatible with secondary structural domains of RNA, and they included a segment of double helical RNA of about four to five base pairs oriented, at least approximately, along the fivefold axes. The distribution of RNA observed for SPMV appears to be distinctly different than the encapsidated nucleic acid conformation previously suggested for another satellite virus, satellite tobacco mosaic virus. This study further shows that analysis of viruses in crystals grown under different chemical conditions may reveal additional information regarding the structure of encapsidated RNA

Annotating the protein-RNA interaction sites in proteins using evolutionary information and protein backbone structure.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Tao; Li, Qian-Zhong

2012-11-07

RNA-protein interactions play important roles in various biological processes. The precise detection of RNA-protein interaction sites is very important for understanding essential biological processes and annotating the function of the proteins. In this study, based on various features from amino acid sequence and structure, including evolutionary information, solvent accessible surface area and torsion angles (φ, ψ) in the backbone structure of the polypeptide chain, a computational method for predicting RNA-binding sites in proteins is proposed. When the method is applied to predict RNA-binding sites in three datasets: RBP86 containing 86 protein chains, RBP107 containing 107 proteins chains and RBP109 containing 109 proteins chains, better sensitivities and specificities are obtained compared to previously published methods in five-fold cross-validation tests. In order to make further examination for the efficiency of our method, the RBP107 dataset is used as training set, RBP86 and RBP109 datasets are used as the independent test sets. In addition, as examples of our prediction, RNA-binding sites in a few proteins are presented. The annotated results are consistent with the PDB annotation. These results show that our method is useful for annotating RNA binding sites of novel proteins.

Structural insights into RNA processing by the human RISC-loading complex.

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Wang, Hong-Wei; Noland, Cameron; Siridechadilok, Bunpote; Taylor, David W; Ma, Enbo; Felderer, Karin; Doudna, Jennifer A; Nogales, Eva

2009-11-01

Targeted gene silencing by RNA interference (RNAi) requires loading of a short guide RNA (small interfering RNA (siRNA) or microRNA (miRNA)) onto an Argonaute protein to form the functional center of an RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). In humans, Argonaute2 (AGO2) assembles with the guide RNA-generating enzyme Dicer and the RNA-binding protein TRBP to form a RISC-loading complex (RLC), which is necessary for efficient transfer of nascent siRNAs and miRNAs from Dicer to AGO2. Here, using single-particle EM analysis, we show that human Dicer has an L-shaped structure. The RLC Dicer's N-terminal DExH/D domain, located in a short 'base branch', interacts with TRBP, whereas its C-terminal catalytic domains in the main body are proximal to AGO2. A model generated by docking the available atomic structures of Dicer and Argonaute homologs into the RLC reconstruction suggests a mechanism for siRNA transfer from Dicer to AGO2.

Trans-acting RNAs as molecular probes for monitoring time-dependent structural change of an RNA complex adapting two structures.

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Maeda, Yuri; Furuta, Hiroyuki; Ikawa, Yoshiya

2011-03-01

As dynamic structural changes are pivotal for the functions of some classes of RNA molecule, it is important to develop methods to monitor structural changes in RNA in a time-dependent manner without chemical modification. Based on previous reports that trans-acting RNAs can be used as probes for analysis and control of 3D structures of target RNAs, we applied this method to monitor time-dependent structural changes in RNA. We designed and performed a proof-of-principle study using a simple model RNA complex that adopts two different structures as a target. The time-dependent structural changes in the target RNA were successfully monitored using two trans-acting RNAs, which stably form a ternary complex with the bimolecular target RNA and act as a catalyst to join two RNA fragments of the target complex, respectively. Copyright © 2010 The Society for Biotechnology, Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tissue-specific regulation of mouse MicroRNA genes in endoderm-derived tissues

OpenAIRE

Gao, Yan; Schug, Jonathan; McKenna, Lindsay B.; Le Lay, John; Kaestner, Klaus H.; Greenbaum, Linda E.

2010-01-01

MicroRNAs fine-tune the activity of hundreds of protein-coding genes. The identification of tissue-specific microRNAs and their promoters has been constrained by the limited sensitivity of prior microRNA quantification methods. Here, we determine the entire microRNAome of three endoderm-derived tissues, liver, jejunum and pancreas, using ultra-high throughput sequencing. Although many microRNA genes are expressed at comparable levels, 162 microRNAs exhibited striking tissue-specificity. After...

An image processing approach to computing distances between RNA secondary structures dot plots

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Sapiro Guillermo

2009-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Computing the distance between two RNA secondary structures can contribute in understanding the functional relationship between them. When used repeatedly, such a procedure may lead to finding a query RNA structure of interest in a database of structures. Several methods are available for computing distances between RNAs represented as strings or graphs, but none utilize the RNA representation with dot plots. Since dot plots are essentially digital images, there is a clear motivation to devise an algorithm for computing the distance between dot plots based on image processing methods. Results We have developed a new metric dubbed 'DoPloCompare', which compares two RNA structures. The method is based on comparing dot plot diagrams that represent the secondary structures. When analyzing two diagrams and motivated by image processing, the distance is based on a combination of histogram correlations and a geometrical distance measure. We introduce, describe, and illustrate the procedure by two applications that utilize this metric on RNA sequences. The first application is the RNA design problem, where the goal is to find the nucleotide sequence for a given secondary structure. Examples where our proposed distance measure outperforms others are given. The second application locates peculiar point mutations that induce significant structural alternations relative to the wild type predicted secondary structure. The approach reported in the past to solve this problem was tested on several RNA sequences with known secondary structures to affirm their prediction, as well as on a data set of ribosomal pieces. These pieces were computationally cut from a ribosome for which an experimentally derived secondary structure is available, and on each piece the prediction conveys similarity to the experimental result. Our newly proposed distance measure shows benefit in this problem as well when compared to standard methods used for assessing

TRANSAT-- method for detecting the conserved helices of functional RNA structures, including transient, pseudo-knotted and alternative structures.

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Wiebe, Nicholas J P; Meyer, Irmtraud M

2010-06-24

The prediction of functional RNA structures has attracted increased interest, as it allows us to study the potential functional roles of many genes. RNA structure prediction methods, however, assume that there is a unique functional RNA structure and also do not predict functional features required for in vivo folding. In order to understand how functional RNA structures form in vivo, we require sophisticated experiments or reliable prediction methods. So far, there exist only a few, experimentally validated transient RNA structures. On the computational side, there exist several computer programs which aim to predict the co-transcriptional folding pathway in vivo, but these make a range of simplifying assumptions and do not capture all features known to influence RNA folding in vivo. We want to investigate if evolutionarily related RNA genes fold in a similar way in vivo. To this end, we have developed a new computational method, Transat, which detects conserved helices of high statistical significance. We introduce the method, present a comprehensive performance evaluation and show that Transat is able to predict the structural features of known reference structures including pseudo-knotted ones as well as those of known alternative structural configurations. Transat can also identify unstructured sub-sequences bound by other molecules and provides evidence for new helices which may define folding pathways, supporting the notion that homologous RNA sequence not only assume a similar reference RNA structure, but also fold similarly. Finally, we show that the structural features predicted by Transat differ from those assuming thermodynamic equilibrium. Unlike the existing methods for predicting folding pathways, our method works in a comparative way. This has the disadvantage of not being able to predict features as function of time, but has the considerable advantage of highlighting conserved features and of not requiring a detailed knowledge of the cellular

Avian reovirus L2 genome segment sequences and predicted structure/function of the encoded RNA-dependent RNA polymerase protein

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Xu Wanhong

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The orthoreoviruses are infectious agents that possess a genome comprised of 10 double-stranded RNA segments encased in two concentric protein capsids. Like virtually all RNA viruses, an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp enzyme is required for viral propagation. RdRp sequences have been determined for the prototype mammalian orthoreoviruses and for several other closely-related reoviruses, including aquareoviruses, but have not yet been reported for any avian orthoreoviruses. Results We determined the L2 genome segment nucleotide sequences, which encode the RdRp proteins, of two different avian reoviruses, strains ARV138 and ARV176 in order to define conserved and variable regions within reovirus RdRp proteins and to better delineate structure/function of this important enzyme. The ARV138 L2 genome segment was 3829 base pairs long, whereas the ARV176 L2 segment was 3830 nucleotides long. Both segments were predicted to encode λB RdRp proteins 1259 amino acids in length. Alignments of these newly-determined ARV genome segments, and their corresponding proteins, were performed with all currently available homologous mammalian reovirus (MRV and aquareovirus (AqRV genome segment and protein sequences. There was ~55% amino acid identity between ARV λB and MRV λ3 proteins, making the RdRp protein the most highly conserved of currently known orthoreovirus proteins, and there was ~28% identity between ARV λB and homologous MRV and AqRV RdRp proteins. Predictive structure/function mapping of identical and conserved residues within the known MRV λ3 atomic structure indicated most identical amino acids and conservative substitutions were located near and within predicted catalytic domains and lining RdRp channels, whereas non-identical amino acids were generally located on the molecule's surfaces. Conclusion The ARV λB and MRV λ3 proteins showed the highest ARV:MRV identity values (~55% amongst all currently known ARV and MRV

Structure of Drosophila Oskar reveals a novel RNA binding protein

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Yang, Na; Yu, Zhenyu; Hu, Menglong; Wang, Mingzhu; Lehmann, Ruth; Xu, Rui-Ming

2015-01-01

Oskar (Osk) protein plays critical roles during Drosophila germ cell development, yet its functions in germ-line formation and body patterning remain poorly understood. This situation contrasts sharply with the vast knowledge about the function and mechanism of osk mRNA localization. Osk is predicted to have an N-terminal LOTUS domain (Osk-N), which has been suggested to bind RNA, and a C-terminal hydrolase-like domain (Osk-C) of unknown function. Here, we report the crystal structures of Osk-N and Osk-C. Osk-N shows a homodimer of winged-helix–fold modules, but without detectable RNA-binding activity. Osk-C has a lipase-fold structure but lacks critical catalytic residues at the putative active site. Surprisingly, we found that Osk-C binds the 3′UTRs of osk and nanos mRNA in vitro. Mutational studies identified a region of Osk-C important for mRNA binding. These results suggest possible functions of Osk in the regulation of stability, regulation of translation, and localization of relevant mRNAs through direct interaction with their 3′UTRs, and provide structural insights into a novel protein–RNA interaction motif involving a hydrolase-related domain. PMID:26324911

Accurate SHAPE-directed RNA secondary structure modeling, including pseudoknots.

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Hajdin, Christine E; Bellaousov, Stanislav; Huggins, Wayne; Leonard, Christopher W; Mathews, David H; Weeks, Kevin M

2013-04-02

A pseudoknot forms in an RNA when nucleotides in a loop pair with a region outside the helices that close the loop. Pseudoknots occur relatively rarely in RNA but are highly overrepresented in functionally critical motifs in large catalytic RNAs, in riboswitches, and in regulatory elements of viruses. Pseudoknots are usually excluded from RNA structure prediction algorithms. When included, these pairings are difficult to model accurately, especially in large RNAs, because allowing this structure dramatically increases the number of possible incorrect folds and because it is difficult to search the fold space for an optimal structure. We have developed a concise secondary structure modeling approach that combines SHAPE (selective 2'-hydroxyl acylation analyzed by primer extension) experimental chemical probing information and a simple, but robust, energy model for the entropic cost of single pseudoknot formation. Structures are predicted with iterative refinement, using a dynamic programming algorithm. This melded experimental and thermodynamic energy function predicted the secondary structures and the pseudoknots for a set of 21 challenging RNAs of known structure ranging in size from 34 to 530 nt. On average, 93% of known base pairs were predicted, and all pseudoknots in well-folded RNAs were identified.

Structural basis of the non-coding RNA RsmZ acting as a protein sponge.

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Duss, Olivier; Michel, Erich; Yulikov, Maxim; Schubert, Mario; Jeschke, Gunnar; Allain, Frédéric H-T

2014-05-29

MicroRNA and protein sequestration by non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) has recently generated much interest. In the bacterial Csr/Rsm system, which is considered to be the most general global post-transcriptional regulatory system responsible for bacterial virulence, ncRNAs such as CsrB or RsmZ activate translation initiation by sequestering homodimeric CsrA-type proteins from the ribosome-binding site of a subset of messenger RNAs. However, the mechanism of ncRNA-mediated protein sequestration is not understood at the molecular level. Here we show for Pseudomonas fluorescens that RsmE protein dimers assemble sequentially, specifically and cooperatively onto the ncRNA RsmZ within a narrow affinity range. This assembly yields two different native ribonucleoprotein structures. Using a powerful combination of nuclear magnetic resonance and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy we elucidate these 70-kilodalton solution structures, thereby revealing the molecular mechanism of the sequestration process and how RsmE binding protects the ncRNA from RNase E degradation. Overall, our findings suggest that RsmZ is well-tuned to sequester, store and release RsmE and therefore can be viewed as an ideal protein 'sponge'.

Web-Beagle: a web server for the alignment of RNA secondary structures.

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Mattei, Eugenio; Pietrosanto, Marco; Ferrè, Fabrizio; Helmer-Citterich, Manuela

2015-07-01

Web-Beagle (http://beagle.bio.uniroma2.it) is a web server for the pairwise global or local alignment of RNA secondary structures. The server exploits a new encoding for RNA secondary structure and a substitution matrix of RNA structural elements to perform RNA structural alignments. The web server allows the user to compute up to 10 000 alignments in a single run, taking as input sets of RNA sequences and structures or primary sequences alone. In the latter case, the server computes the secondary structure prediction for the RNAs on-the-fly using RNAfold (free energy minimization). The user can also compare a set of input RNAs to one of five pre-compiled RNA datasets including lncRNAs and 3' UTRs. All types of comparison produce in output the pairwise alignments along with structural similarity and statistical significance measures for each resulting alignment. A graphical color-coded representation of the alignments allows the user to easily identify structural similarities between RNAs. Web-Beagle can be used for finding structurally related regions in two or more RNAs, for the identification of homologous regions or for functional annotation. Benchmark tests show that Web-Beagle has lower computational complexity, running time and better performances than other available methods. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

On infrared spectroscopic analysis of transfer RNA secondary structure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Semenov, M A; Starikov, E B

1987-07-14

Various techniques of IR spectroscopy in the 1550-1750 cm/sup -1/ region employed to analyse the tRNA secondary structure are discussed and a novel improved method is proposed. The main novel features of this method are the approximation of tRNA helical region spectra by catalogue carbonyl absorption bands and approximation of tRNA nonhelical region spectra by those of homopolyribonucleotides. The IR spectra of tRNA/sub yeast//sup phe/ and tRNA/sub E.coli//sup fmet/ in the carbonyl vibration region are explained on the basis of calculated transition moment coupling.

Structural organizations of yeast RNase P and RNase MRP holoenzymes as revealed by UV-crosslinking studies of RNA-protein interactions.

Science.gov (United States)

Khanova, Elena; Esakova, Olga; Perederina, Anna; Berezin, Igor; Krasilnikov, Andrey S

2012-04-01

Eukaryotic ribonuclease (RNase) P and RNase MRP are closely related ribonucleoprotein complexes involved in the metabolism of various RNA molecules including tRNA, rRNA, and some mRNAs. While evolutionarily related to bacterial RNase P, eukaryotic enzymes of the RNase P/MRP family are much more complex. Saccharomyces cerevisiae RNase P consists of a catalytic RNA component and nine essential proteins; yeast RNase MRP has an RNA component resembling that in RNase P and 10 essential proteins, most of which are shared with RNase P. The structural organizations of eukaryotic RNases P/MRP are not clear. Here we present the results of RNA-protein UV crosslinking studies performed on RNase P and RNase MRP holoenzymes isolated from yeast. The results indicate locations of specific protein-binding sites in the RNA components of RNase P and RNase MRP and shed light on the structural organizations of these large ribonucleoprotein complexes.

Characterization and visualization of RNA secondary structure Boltzmann ensemble via information theory.

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Lin, Luan; McKerrow, Wilson H; Richards, Bryce; Phonsom, Chukiat; Lawrence, Charles E

2018-03-05

The nearest neighbor model and associated dynamic programming algorithms allow for the efficient estimation of the RNA secondary structure Boltzmann ensemble. However because a given RNA secondary structure only contains a fraction of the possible helices that could form from a given sequence, the Boltzmann ensemble is multimodal. Several methods exist for clustering structures and finding those modes. However less focus is given to exploring the underlying reasons for this multimodality: the presence of conflicting basepairs. Information theory, or more specifically mutual information, provides a method to identify those basepairs that are key to the secondary structure. To this end we find most informative basepairs and visualize the effect of these basepairs on the secondary structure. Knowing whether a most informative basepair is present tells us not only the status of the particular pair but also provides a large amount of information about which other pairs are present or not present. We find that a few basepairs account for a large amount of the structural uncertainty. The identification of these pairs indicates small changes to sequence or stability that will have a large effect on structure. We provide a novel algorithm that uses mutual information to identify the key basepairs that lead to a multimodal Boltzmann distribution. We then visualize the effect of these pairs on the overall Boltzmann ensemble.

Dissection of specific binding of HIV-1 Gag to the 'packaging signal' in viral RNA.

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Comas-Garcia, Mauricio; Datta, Siddhartha Ak; Baker, Laura; Varma, Rajat; Gudla, Prabhakar R; Rein, Alan

2017-07-20

Selective packaging of HIV-1 genomic RNA (gRNA) requires the presence of a cis -acting RNA element called the 'packaging signal' (Ψ). However, the mechanism by which Ψ promotes selective packaging of the gRNA is not well understood. We used fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and quenching data to monitor the binding of recombinant HIV-1 Gag protein to Cy5-tagged 190-base RNAs. At physiological ionic strength, Gag binds with very similar, nanomolar affinities to both Ψ-containing and control RNAs. We challenged these interactions by adding excess competing tRNA; introducing mutations in Gag; or raising the ionic strength. These modifications all revealed high specificity for Ψ. This specificity is evidently obscured in physiological salt by non-specific, predominantly electrostatic interactions. This nonspecific activity was attenuated by mutations in the MA, CA, and NC domains, including CA mutations disrupting Gag-Gag interaction. We propose that gRNA is selectively packaged because binding to Ψ nucleates virion assembly with particular efficiency.

Allele-Specific Alternative mRNA processing (ASARP) | Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR)

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A software pipeline for prediction of allele-specific alternative RNA processing events using single RNA-seq data. The current version focuses on prediction of alternative splicing and alternative polyadenylation modulated by genetic variants.

Phenotypic silencing of cytoplasmic genes using sequence-specific double-stranded short interfering RNA and its application in the reverse genetics of wild type negative-strand RNA viruses

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Barik Sailen

2001-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS by short interfering RNA has opened up new directions in the phenotypic mutation of cellular genes. However, its efficacy on non-nuclear genes and its effect on the interferon pathway remain unexplored. Since directed mutation of RNA genomes is not possible through conventional mutagenesis, we have tested sequence-specific 21-nucleotide long double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs for their ability to silence cytoplasmic RNA genomes. Results Short dsRNAs were generated against specific mRNAs of respiratory syncytial virus, a nonsegmented negative-stranded RNA virus with a cytoplasmic life cycle. At nanomolar concentrations, the dsRNAs specifically abrogated expression of the corresponding viral proteins, and produced the expected mutant phenotype ex vivo. The dsRNAs did not induce an interferon response, and did not inhibit cellular gene expression. The ablation of the viral proteins correlated with the loss of the specific mRNAs. In contrast, viral genomic and antigenomic RNA, which are encapsidated, were not directly affected. Conclusions Synthetic inhibitory dsRNAs are effective in specific silencing of RNA genomes that are exclusively cytoplasmic and transcribed by RNA-dependent RNA polymerases. RNA-directed RNA gene silencing does not require cloning, expression, and mutagenesis of viral cDNA, and thus, will allow the generation of phenotypic null mutants of specific RNA viral genes under normal infection conditions and at any point in the infection cycle. This will, for the first time, permit functional genomic studies, attenuated infections, reverse genetic analysis, and studies of host-virus signaling pathways using a wild type RNA virus, unencumbered by any superinfecting virus.

Predicting and Modeling RNA Architecture

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Westhof, Eric; Masquida, Benoît; Jossinet, Fabrice

2011-01-01

SUMMARY A general approach for modeling the architecture of large and structured RNA molecules is described. The method exploits the modularity and the hierarchical folding of RNA architecture that is viewed as the assembly of preformed double-stranded helices defined by Watson-Crick base pairs and RNA modules maintained by non-Watson-Crick base pairs. Despite the extensive molecular neutrality observed in RNA structures, specificity in RNA folding is achieved through global constraints like lengths of helices, coaxiality of helical stacks, and structures adopted at the junctions of helices. The Assemble integrated suite of computer tools allows for sequence and structure analysis as well as interactive modeling by homology or ab initio assembly with possibilities for fitting within electronic density maps. The local key role of non-Watson-Crick pairs guides RNA architecture formation and offers metrics for assessing the accuracy of three-dimensional models in a more useful way than usual root mean square deviation (RMSD) values. PMID:20504963

The Spot 42 RNA: A regulatory small RNA with roles in the central metabolism

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Bækkedal, Cecilie; Haugen, Peik

2015-01-01

The Spot 42 RNA is a 109 nucleotide long (in Escherichia coli) noncoding small regulatory RNA (sRNA) encoded by the spf (spot fourty-two) gene. spf is found in gamma-proteobacteria and the majority of experimental work on Spot 42 RNA has been performed using E. coli, and recently Aliivibrio salmonicida. In the cell Spot 42 RNA plays essential roles as a regulator in carbohydrate metabolism and uptake, and its expression is activated by glucose, and inhibited by the cAMP-CRP complex. Here we summarize the current knowledge on Spot 42, and present the natural distribution of spf, show family-specific secondary structural features of Spot 42, and link highly conserved structural regions to mRNA target binding. PMID:26327359

The Spot 42 RNA: A regulatory small RNA with roles in the central metabolism.

Science.gov (United States)

Bækkedal, Cecilie; Haugen, Peik

2015-01-01

The Spot 42 RNA is a 109 nucleotide long (in Escherichia coli) noncoding small regulatory RNA (sRNA) encoded by the spf (spot fourty-two) gene. spf is found in gamma-proteobacteria and the majority of experimental work on Spot 42 RNA has been performed using E. coli, and recently Aliivibrio salmonicida. In the cell Spot 42 RNA plays essential roles as a regulator in carbohydrate metabolism and uptake, and its expression is activated by glucose, and inhibited by the cAMP-CRP complex. Here we summarize the current knowledge on Spot 42, and present the natural distribution of spf, show family-specific secondary structural features of Spot 42, and link highly conserved structural regions to mRNA target binding.

Preparation and characterization of high-specific activity radiolabeled 50 S measles virus RNA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Spruance, S.L.; Ashton, B.N.; Smith, C.B.

1980-01-01

A method is described to radiolabeled measles virus RNA for hybridization studies. Tritiated nucleosides were added to the media of measles virus infected Vero cells and negative-strand (genome) RNA with a specific activity of 6X10 5 c.p.m./μg was purified from viral nucleocapsids. 50 S RNA was the sole RNA present in nucleocapsids and self-annealed to 50% due to the presence of 25% 50 S plus-strands (anti-genomes). (Auth.)

Specificity in the association of tomato black ring virus satellite RNA with helper virus.

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Oncino, C; Hemmer, O; Fritsch, C

1995-10-20

The satellite RNAs (sat-RNAs) associated with some isolates of tomato black ring virus (TBRV) consist of single-stranded molecules of about 1375 nucleotides, encoding a nonstructural protein of 48K which has been shown to be involved in the replication of the sat-RNA. The TBRV sat-RNAs are also dependent for their replication and for their encapsidation on the helper virus. To characterize the nature of the association between sat-RNA and helper virus, transcripts of sat-RNA from TBRV isolates C and L (respectively, of serotypes G and S) have been prepared and inoculated onto Chenopodium quinoa leaves or protoplasts. Transcript of the TBRV sat-RNA C is efficiently multiplied when coinoculated with the genomic RNAs of TBRV isolate G (used instead of TBRV isolate C, because isolate G was depleted of sat-RNA), but does not multiply with TBRV isolate L. On the other hand, transcript of the sat-RNA L is able to multiply with the cognate helper virus and, less efficiently, with grapevine chrome mosaic virus (another nepovirus, 80% similar to TBRV), but does not multiply with TBRV G. The specificity of the association resides at the level of sat-RNA replication. Analysis of the multiplication of chimeric sat-RNAs, obtained by exchanging different regions between the two sat-RNAs C and L, showed that the 5' and the 3' noncoding regions of the sat-RNA, although important for replication, are not implicated in specificity. The results suggest that the determinants of the specificity are contained in the 48K sat-RNA-encoded protein.

Sparse RNA folding revisited: space-efficient minimum free energy structure prediction.

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Will, Sebastian; Jabbari, Hosna

2016-01-01

RNA secondary structure prediction by energy minimization is the central computational tool for the analysis of structural non-coding RNAs and their interactions. Sparsification has been successfully applied to improve the time efficiency of various structure prediction algorithms while guaranteeing the same result; however, for many such folding problems, space efficiency is of even greater concern, particularly for long RNA sequences. So far, space-efficient sparsified RNA folding with fold reconstruction was solved only for simple base-pair-based pseudo-energy models. Here, we revisit the problem of space-efficient free energy minimization. Whereas the space-efficient minimization of the free energy has been sketched before, the reconstruction of the optimum structure has not even been discussed. We show that this reconstruction is not possible in trivial extension of the method for simple energy models. Then, we present the time- and space-efficient sparsified free energy minimization algorithm SparseMFEFold that guarantees MFE structure prediction. In particular, this novel algorithm provides efficient fold reconstruction based on dynamically garbage-collected trace arrows. The complexity of our algorithm depends on two parameters, the number of candidates Z and the number of trace arrows T; both are bounded by [Formula: see text], but are typically much smaller. The time complexity of RNA folding is reduced from [Formula: see text] to [Formula: see text]; the space complexity, from [Formula: see text] to [Formula: see text]. Our empirical results show more than 80 % space savings over RNAfold [Vienna RNA package] on the long RNAs from the RNA STRAND database (≥2500 bases). The presented technique is intentionally generalizable to complex prediction algorithms; due to their high space demands, algorithms like pseudoknot prediction and RNA-RNA-interaction prediction are expected to profit even stronger than "standard" MFE folding. SparseMFEFold is free

CHSalign: A Web Server That Builds upon Junction-Explorer and RNAJAG for Pairwise Alignment of RNA Secondary Structures with Coaxial Helical Stacking.

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Lei Hua

Full Text Available RNA junctions are important structural elements of RNA molecules. They are formed when three or more helices come together in three-dimensional space. Recent studies have focused on the annotation and prediction of coaxial helical stacking (CHS motifs within junctions. Here we exploit such predictions to develop an efficient alignment tool to handle RNA secondary structures with CHS motifs. Specifically, we build upon our Junction-Explorer software for predicting coaxial stacking and RNAJAG for modelling junction topologies as tree graphs to incorporate constrained tree matching and dynamic programming algorithms into a new method, called CHSalign, for aligning the secondary structures of RNA molecules containing CHS motifs. Thus, CHSalign is intended to be an efficient alignment tool for RNAs containing similar junctions. Experimental results based on thousands of alignments demonstrate that CHSalign can align two RNA secondary structures containing CHS motifs more accurately than other RNA secondary structure alignment tools. CHSalign yields a high score when aligning two RNA secondary structures with similar CHS motifs or helical arrangement patterns, and a low score otherwise. This new method has been implemented in a web server, and the program is also made freely available, at http://bioinformatics.njit.edu/CHSalign/.

Tree decomposition based fast search of RNA structures including pseudoknots in genomes.

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Yinglei; Liu, Chunmei; Malmberg, Russell; Pan, Fangfang; Cai, Liming

2005-01-01

Searching genomes for RNA secondary structure with computational methods has become an important approach to the annotation of non-coding RNAs. However, due to the lack of efficient algorithms for accurate RNA structure-sequence alignment, computer programs capable of fast and effectively searching genomes for RNA secondary structures have not been available. In this paper, a novel RNA structure profiling model is introduced based on the notion of a conformational graph to specify the consensus structure of an RNA family. Tree decomposition yields a small tree width t for such conformation graphs (e.g., t = 2 for stem loops and only a slight increase for pseudo-knots). Within this modelling framework, the optimal alignment of a sequence to the structure model corresponds to finding a maximum valued isomorphic subgraph and consequently can be accomplished through dynamic programming on the tree decomposition of the conformational graph in time O(k(t)N(2)), where k is a small parameter; and N is the size of the projiled RNA structure. Experiments show that the application of the alignment algorithm to search in genomes yields the same search accuracy as methods based on a Covariance model with a significant reduction in computation time. In particular; very accurate searches of tmRNAs in bacteria genomes and of telomerase RNAs in yeast genomes can be accomplished in days, as opposed to months required by other methods. The tree decomposition based searching tool is free upon request and can be downloaded at our site h t t p ://w.uga.edu/RNA-informatics/software/index.php.

The analysis of novel microRNA mimic sequences in cancer cells reveals lack of specificity in stem-loop RT-qPCR-based microRNA detection.

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Winata, Patrick; Williams, Marissa; McGowan, Eileen; Nassif, Najah; van Zandwijk, Nico; Reid, Glen

2017-11-17

MicroRNAs are frequently downregulated in cancer, and restoring expression has tumour suppressive activity in tumour cells. Our recent phase I clinical trial investigated microRNA-based therapy in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma. Treatment with TargomiRs, microRNA mimics with novel sequence packaged in EGFR antibody-targeted bacterial minicells, revealed clear signs of clinical activity. In order to detect delivery of microRNA mimics to tumour cells in future clinical trials, we tested hydrolysis probe-based assays specific for the sequence of the novel mimics in transfected mesothelioma cell lines using RT-qPCR. The custom assays efficiently and specifically amplified the consensus mimics. However, we found that these assays gave a signal when total RNA from untransfected and control mimic-transfected cells were used as templates. Further investigation revealed that the reverse transcription step using stem-loop primers appeared to introduce substantial non-specific amplification with either total RNA or synthetic RNA templates. This suggests that reverse transcription using stem-loop primers suffers from an intrinsic lack of specificity for the detection of highly similar microRNAs in the same family, especially when analysing total RNA. These results suggest that RT-qPCR is unlikely to be an effective means to detect delivery of microRNA mimic-based drugs to tumour cells in patients.

Network Properties of the Ensemble of RNA Structures

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Clote, Peter; Bayegan, Amir

2015-01-01

We describe the first dynamic programming algorithm that computes the expected degree for the network, or graph G = (V, E) of all secondary structures of a given RNA sequence a = a 1, …, a n. Here, the nodes V correspond to all secondary structures of a, while an edge exists between nodes s, t if the secondary structure t can be obtained from s by adding, removing or shifting a base pair. Since secondary structure kinetics programs implement the Gillespie algorithm, which simulates a random walk on the network of secondary structures, the expected network degree may provide a better understanding of kinetics of RNA folding when allowing defect diffusion, helix zippering, and related conformation transformations. We determine the correlation between expected network degree, contact order, conformational entropy, and expected number of native contacts for a benchmarking dataset of RNAs. Source code is available at http://bioinformatics.bc.edu/clotelab/RNAexpNumNbors. PMID:26488894

In vivo genome-wide profiling of RNA secondary structure reveals novel regulatory features.

Science.gov (United States)

Ding, Yiliang; Tang, Yin; Kwok, Chun Kit; Zhang, Yu; Bevilacqua, Philip C; Assmann, Sarah M

2014-01-30

RNA structure has critical roles in processes ranging from ligand sensing to the regulation of translation, polyadenylation and splicing. However, a lack of genome-wide in vivo RNA structural data has limited our understanding of how RNA structure regulates gene expression in living cells. Here we present a high-throughput, genome-wide in vivo RNA structure probing method, structure-seq, in which dimethyl sulphate methylation of unprotected adenines and cytosines is identified by next-generation sequencing. Application of this method to Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings yielded the first in vivo genome-wide RNA structure map at nucleotide resolution for any organism, with quantitative structural information across more than 10,000 transcripts. Our analysis reveals a three-nucleotide periodic repeat pattern in the structure of coding regions, as well as a less-structured region immediately upstream of the start codon, and shows that these features are strongly correlated with translation efficiency. We also find patterns of strong and weak secondary structure at sites of alternative polyadenylation, as well as strong secondary structure at 5' splice sites that correlates with unspliced events. Notably, in vivo structures of messenger RNAs annotated for stress responses are poorly predicted in silico, whereas mRNA structures of genes related to cell function maintenance are well predicted. Global comparison of several structural features between these two categories shows that the mRNAs associated with stress responses tend to have more single-strandedness, longer maximal loop length and higher free energy per nucleotide, features that may allow these RNAs to undergo conformational changes in response to environmental conditions. Structure-seq allows the RNA structurome and its biological roles to be interrogated on a genome-wide scale and should be applicable to any organism.

A structured sparse regression method for estimating isoform expression level from multi-sample RNA-seq data.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, L; Liu, X J

2016-06-03

With the rapid development of next-generation high-throughput sequencing technology, RNA-seq has become a standard and important technique for transcriptome analysis. For multi-sample RNA-seq data, the existing expression estimation methods usually deal with each single-RNA-seq sample, and ignore that the read distributions are consistent across multiple samples. In the current study, we propose a structured sparse regression method, SSRSeq, to estimate isoform expression using multi-sample RNA-seq data. SSRSeq uses a non-parameter model to capture the general tendency of non-uniformity read distribution for all genes across multiple samples. Additionally, our method adds a structured sparse regularization, which not only incorporates the sparse specificity between a gene and its corresponding isoform expression levels, but also reduces the effects of noisy reads, especially for lowly expressed genes and isoforms. Four real datasets were used to evaluate our method on isoform expression estimation. Compared with other popular methods, SSRSeq reduced the variance between multiple samples, and produced more accurate isoform expression estimations, and thus more meaningful biological interpretations.

Correlation of RNA secondary structure statistics with thermodynamic stability and applications to folding.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Johnny C; Gardner, David P; Ozer, Stuart; Gutell, Robin R; Ren, Pengyu

2009-08-28

The accurate prediction of the secondary and tertiary structure of an RNA with different folding algorithms is dependent on several factors, including the energy functions. However, an RNA higher-order structure cannot be predicted accurately from its sequence based on a limited set of energy parameters. The inter- and intramolecular forces between this RNA and other small molecules and macromolecules, in addition to other factors in the cell such as pH, ionic strength, and temperature, influence the complex dynamics associated with transition of a single stranded RNA to its secondary and tertiary structure. Since all of the factors that affect the formation of an RNAs 3D structure cannot be determined experimentally, statistically derived potential energy has been used in the prediction of protein structure. In the current work, we evaluate the statistical free energy of various secondary structure motifs, including base-pair stacks, hairpin loops, and internal loops, using their statistical frequency obtained from the comparative analysis of more than 50,000 RNA sequences stored in the RNA Comparative Analysis Database (rCAD) at the Comparative RNA Web (CRW) Site. Statistical energy was computed from the structural statistics for several datasets. While the statistical energy for a base-pair stack correlates with experimentally derived free energy values, suggesting a Boltzmann-like distribution, variation is observed between different molecules and their location on the phylogenetic tree of life. Our statistical energy values calculated for several structural elements were utilized in the Mfold RNA-folding algorithm. The combined statistical energy values for base-pair stacks, hairpins and internal loop flanks result in a significant improvement in the accuracy of secondary structure prediction; the hairpin flanks contribute the most.

De Novo Discovery of Structured ncRNA Motifs in Genomic Sequences

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ruzzo, Walter L; Gorodkin, Jan

2014-01-01

De novo discovery of "motifs" capturing the commonalities among related noncoding ncRNA structured RNAs is among the most difficult problems in computational biology. This chapter outlines the challenges presented by this problem, together with some approaches towards solving them, with an emphas...... on an approach based on the CMfinder CMfinder program as a case study. Applications to genomic screens for novel de novo structured ncRNA ncRNA s, including structured RNA elements in untranslated portions of protein-coding genes, are presented.......De novo discovery of "motifs" capturing the commonalities among related noncoding ncRNA structured RNAs is among the most difficult problems in computational biology. This chapter outlines the challenges presented by this problem, together with some approaches towards solving them, with an emphasis...

Viroids: from genotype to phenotype just relying on RNA sequence and structural motifs

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Ricardo eFlores

2012-06-01

Full Text Available As a consequence of two unique physical properties, small size and circularity, viroid RNAs do not code for proteins and thus depend on RNA sequence/structural motifs for interacting with host proteins that mediate their invasion, replication, spread, and circumvention of defensive barriers. Viroid genomes fold up on themselves adopting collapsed secondary structures wherein stretches of nucleotides stabilized by Watson-Crick pairs are flanked by apparently unstructured loops. However, compelling data show that they are instead stabilized by alternative non-canonical pairs and that specific loops in the rod-like secondary structure, characteristic of Potato spindle tuber viroid and most other members of the family Pospiviroidae, are critical for replication and systemic trafficking. In contrast, rather than folding into a rod-like secondary structure, most members of the family Avsunvioidae adopt multibranched conformations occasionally stabilized by kissing loop interactions critical for viroid viability in vivo. Besides these most stable secondary structures, viroid RNAs alternatively adopt during replication transient metastable conformations containing elements of local higher-order structure, prominent among which are the hammerhead ribozymes catalyzing a key replicative step in the family Avsunvioidae, and certain conserved hairpins that also mediate replication steps in the family Pospiviroidae. Therefore, different RNA structures ⎯either global or local ⎯ determine different functions, thus highlighting the need for in-depth structural studies on viroid RNAs.

StralSV: assessment of sequence variability within similar 3D structures and application to polio RNA-dependent RNA polymerase

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zemla, A; Lang, D; Kostova, T; Andino, R; Zhou, C

2010-11-29

Most of the currently used methods for protein function prediction rely on sequence-based comparisons between a query protein and those for which a functional annotation is provided. A serious limitation of sequence similarity-based approaches for identifying residue conservation among proteins is the low confidence in assigning residue-residue correspondences among proteins when the level of sequence identity between the compared proteins is poor. Multiple sequence alignment methods are more satisfactory - still, they cannot provide reliable results at low levels of sequence identity. Our goal in the current work was to develop an algorithm that could overcome these difficulties and facilitate the identification of structurally (and possibly functionally) relevant residue-residue correspondences between compared protein structures. Here we present StralSV, a new algorithm for detecting closely related structure fragments and quantifying residue frequency from tight local structure alignments. We apply StralSV in a study of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of poliovirus and demonstrate that the algorithm can be used to determine regions of the protein that are relatively unique or that shared structural similarity with structures that are distantly related. By quantifying residue frequencies among many residue-residue pairs extracted from local alignments, one can infer potential structural or functional importance of specific residues that are determined to be highly conserved or that deviate from a consensus. We further demonstrate that considerable detailed structural and phylogenetic information can be derived from StralSV analyses. StralSV is a new structure-based algorithm for identifying and aligning structure fragments that have similarity to a reference protein. StralSV analysis can be used to quantify residue-residue correspondences and identify residues that may be of particular structural or functional importance, as well as unusual or unexpected

Ebola virus RNA editing depends on the primary editing site sequence and an upstream secondary structure.

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Masfique Mehedi

Full Text Available Ebolavirus (EBOV, the causative agent of a severe hemorrhagic fever and a biosafety level 4 pathogen, increases its genome coding capacity by producing multiple transcripts encoding for structural and nonstructural glycoproteins from a single gene. This is achieved through RNA editing, during which non-template adenosine residues are incorporated into the EBOV mRNAs at an editing site encoding for 7 adenosine residues. However, the mechanism of EBOV RNA editing is currently not understood. In this study, we report for the first time that minigenomes containing the glycoprotein gene editing site can undergo RNA editing, thereby eliminating the requirement for a biosafety level 4 laboratory to study EBOV RNA editing. Using a newly developed dual-reporter minigenome, we have characterized the mechanism of EBOV RNA editing, and have identified cis-acting sequences that are required for editing, located between 9 nt upstream and 9 nt downstream of the editing site. Moreover, we show that a secondary structure in the upstream cis-acting sequence plays an important role in RNA editing. EBOV RNA editing is glycoprotein gene-specific, as a stretch encoding for 7 adenosine residues located in the viral polymerase gene did not serve as an editing site, most likely due to an absence of the necessary cis-acting sequences. Finally, the EBOV protein VP30 was identified as a trans-acting factor for RNA editing, constituting a novel function for this protein. Overall, our results provide novel insights into the RNA editing mechanism of EBOV, further understanding of which might result in novel intervention strategies against this viral pathogen.

Ebola virus RNA editing depends on the primary editing site sequence and an upstream secondary structure.

Science.gov (United States)

Mehedi, Masfique; Hoenen, Thomas; Robertson, Shelly; Ricklefs, Stacy; Dolan, Michael A; Taylor, Travis; Falzarano, Darryl; Ebihara, Hideki; Porcella, Stephen F; Feldmann, Heinz

2013-01-01

Ebolavirus (EBOV), the causative agent of a severe hemorrhagic fever and a biosafety level 4 pathogen, increases its genome coding capacity by producing multiple transcripts encoding for structural and nonstructural glycoproteins from a single gene. This is achieved through RNA editing, during which non-template adenosine residues are incorporated into the EBOV mRNAs at an editing site encoding for 7 adenosine residues. However, the mechanism of EBOV RNA editing is currently not understood. In this study, we report for the first time that minigenomes containing the glycoprotein gene editing site can undergo RNA editing, thereby eliminating the requirement for a biosafety level 4 laboratory to study EBOV RNA editing. Using a newly developed dual-reporter minigenome, we have characterized the mechanism of EBOV RNA editing, and have identified cis-acting sequences that are required for editing, located between 9 nt upstream and 9 nt downstream of the editing site. Moreover, we show that a secondary structure in the upstream cis-acting sequence plays an important role in RNA editing. EBOV RNA editing is glycoprotein gene-specific, as a stretch encoding for 7 adenosine residues located in the viral polymerase gene did not serve as an editing site, most likely due to an absence of the necessary cis-acting sequences. Finally, the EBOV protein VP30 was identified as a trans-acting factor for RNA editing, constituting a novel function for this protein. Overall, our results provide novel insights into the RNA editing mechanism of EBOV, further understanding of which might result in novel intervention strategies against this viral pathogen.

A Specific Hepatic Transfer RNA for Phosphoserine*

Science.gov (United States)

Mäenpää, Pekka H.; Bernfield, Merton R.

1970-01-01

Radioactive O-phosphoryl-L-serine was detected after alkaline deacylation of rat and rooster liver [3H]seryl-tRNA acylated in vitro with homologous synthetases. Ribonuclease treatment of this tRNA yielded a compound with the properties of phosphoseryl-adenosine. Benzoylated DEAE-cellulose chromatography of seryl-tRNA yielded four distinct peaks, only one of which contained phosphoserine. A unique fraction for phosphoserine was also found on chromatography of nonacylated tRNA. In ribosome binding studies, this fraction responded very slightly with poly(U,C), but not with any of the known serine trinucleotide codons. Substantial incorporation of [3H]-serine into protein from this tRNA species was observed in an aminoacyl-tRNA dependent polysomal system derived from chick oviducts. No phosphoserine was found in Escherichia coli or yeast seryl-tRNA acylated with homologous enzymes, nor in E. coli seryl-tRNA acylated with liver synthetase. In the absence of tRNA, free phosphoserine was not formed in reaction mixtures, which suggests that phosphoseryl-tRNA arises by phosphorylation of the unique seryl-tRNA species. These results demonstrate a discrete tRNASer species in rat and rooster liver containing phosphoserine and suggest that this tRNA is involved in ribosomal polypeptide synthesis. PMID:4943179

Mapping RNA Structure In Vitro with SHAPE Chemistry and Next-Generation Sequencing (SHAPE-Seq).

Science.gov (United States)

Watters, Kyle E; Lucks, Julius B

2016-01-01

Mapping RNA structure with selective 2'-hydroxyl acylation analyzed by primer extension (SHAPE) chemistry has proven to be a versatile method for characterizing RNA structure in a variety of contexts. SHAPE reagents covalently modify RNAs in a structure-dependent manner to create adducts at the 2'-OH group of the ribose backbone at nucleotides that are structurally flexible. The positions of these adducts are detected using reverse transcriptase (RT) primer extension, which stops one nucleotide before the modification, to create a pool of cDNAs whose lengths reflect the location of SHAPE modification. Quantification of the cDNA pools is used to estimate the "reactivity" of each nucleotide in an RNA molecule to the SHAPE reagent. High reactivities indicate nucleotides that are structurally flexible, while low reactivities indicate nucleotides that are inflexible. These SHAPE reactivities can then be used to infer RNA structures by restraining RNA structure prediction algorithms. Here, we provide a state-of-the-art protocol describing how to perform in vitro RNA structure probing with SHAPE chemistry using next-generation sequencing to quantify cDNA pools and estimate reactivities (SHAPE-Seq). The use of next-generation sequencing allows for higher throughput, more consistent data analysis, and multiplexing capabilities. The technique described herein, SHAPE-Seq v2.0, uses a universal reverse transcription priming site that is ligated to the RNA after SHAPE modification. The introduced priming site allows for the structural analysis of an RNA independent of its sequence.

Molecular archaeology of Flaviviridae untranslated regions: duplicated RNA structures in the replication enhancer of flaviviruses and pestiviruses emerged via convergent evolution.

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Dmitri J Gritsun

Full Text Available RNA secondary structures in the 3'untranslated regions (3'UTR of the viruses of the family Flaviviridae, previously identified as essential (promoters or beneficial (enhancers for replication, have been analysed. Duplicated enhancer elements are revealed as a global feature in the evolution of the 3'UTR of distantly related viruses within the genera Flavivirus and Pestivirus. For the flaviviruses, duplicated structures occur in the 3'UTR of all four distantly related ecological virus subgroups (tick-borne, mosquito-borne, no known vector and insect-specific flaviviruses (ISFV. RNA structural differences distinguish tick-borne flaviviruses with discrete pathogenetic characteristics. For Aedes- and Culex-associated ISFV, secondary RNA structures with different conformations display numerous short ssRNA direct repeats, exposed as loops and bulges. Long quadruplicate regions comprise almost the entire 3'UTR of Culex-associated ISFV. Extended duplicated sequence and associated RNA structures were also discovered in the 3'UTR of pestiviruses. In both the Flavivirus and Pestivirus genera, duplicated RNA structures were localized to the enhancer regions of the 3'UTR suggesting an adaptive role predominantly in wild-type viruses. We propose sequence reiteration might act as a scaffold for dimerization of proteins involved in assembly of viral replicase complexes. Numerous nucleotide repeats exposed as loops/bulges might also interfere with host immune responses acting as a molecular sponge to sequester key host proteins or microRNAs.

Functional 5' UTR mRNA structures in eukaryotic translation regulation and how to find them.

Science.gov (United States)

Leppek, Kathrin; Das, Rhiju; Barna, Maria

2018-03-01

RNA molecules can fold into intricate shapes that can provide an additional layer of control of gene expression beyond that of their sequence. In this Review, we discuss the current mechanistic understanding of structures in 5' untranslated regions (UTRs) of eukaryotic mRNAs and the emerging methodologies used to explore them. These structures may regulate cap-dependent translation initiation through helicase-mediated remodelling of RNA structures and higher-order RNA interactions, as well as cap-independent translation initiation through internal ribosome entry sites (IRESs), mRNA modifications and other specialized translation pathways. We discuss known 5' UTR RNA structures and how new structure probing technologies coupled with prospective validation, particularly compensatory mutagenesis, are likely to identify classes of structured RNA elements that shape post-transcriptional control of gene expression and the development of multicellular organisms.

Comparative structural analysis of human DEAD-box RNA helicases.

Science.gov (United States)

Schütz, Patrick; Karlberg, Tobias; van den Berg, Susanne; Collins, Ruairi; Lehtiö, Lari; Högbom, Martin; Holmberg-Schiavone, Lovisa; Tempel, Wolfram; Park, Hee-Won; Hammarström, Martin; Moche, Martin; Thorsell, Ann-Gerd; Schüler, Herwig

2010-09-30

DEAD-box RNA helicases play various, often critical, roles in all processes where RNAs are involved. Members of this family of proteins are linked to human disease, including cancer and viral infections. DEAD-box proteins contain two conserved domains that both contribute to RNA and ATP binding. Despite recent advances the molecular details of how these enzymes convert chemical energy into RNA remodeling is unknown. We present crystal structures of the isolated DEAD-domains of human DDX2A/eIF4A1, DDX2B/eIF4A2, DDX5, DDX10/DBP4, DDX18/myc-regulated DEAD-box protein, DDX20, DDX47, DDX52/ROK1, and DDX53/CAGE, and of the helicase domains of DDX25 and DDX41. Together with prior knowledge this enables a family-wide comparative structural analysis. We propose a general mechanism for opening of the RNA binding site. This analysis also provides insights into the diversity of DExD/H- proteins, with implications for understanding the functions of individual family members.

Comparative structural analysis of human DEAD-box RNA helicases.

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Patrick Schütz

2010-09-01

Full Text Available DEAD-box RNA helicases play various, often critical, roles in all processes where RNAs are involved. Members of this family of proteins are linked to human disease, including cancer and viral infections. DEAD-box proteins contain two conserved domains that both contribute to RNA and ATP binding. Despite recent advances the molecular details of how these enzymes convert chemical energy into RNA remodeling is unknown. We present crystal structures of the isolated DEAD-domains of human DDX2A/eIF4A1, DDX2B/eIF4A2, DDX5, DDX10/DBP4, DDX18/myc-regulated DEAD-box protein, DDX20, DDX47, DDX52/ROK1, and DDX53/CAGE, and of the helicase domains of DDX25 and DDX41. Together with prior knowledge this enables a family-wide comparative structural analysis. We propose a general mechanism for opening of the RNA binding site. This analysis also provides insights into the diversity of DExD/H- proteins, with implications for understanding the functions of individual family members.

An evolutionary model for protein-coding regions with conserved RNA structure

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Jakob Skou; Forsberg, Roald; Meyer, Irmtraud Margret

2004-01-01

in the RNA structure. The overlap of these fundamental dependencies is sufficient to cause "contagious" context dependencies which cascade across many nucleotide sites. Such large-scale dependencies challenge the use of traditional phylogenetic models in evolutionary inference because they explicitly assume...... components of traditional phylogenetic models. We applied this to a data set of full-genome sequences from the hepatitis C virus where five RNA structures are mapped within the coding region. This allowed us to partition the effects of selection on different structural elements and to test various hypotheses......Here we present a model of nucleotide substitution in protein-coding regions that also encode the formation of conserved RNA structures. In such regions, apparent evolutionary context dependencies exist, both between nucleotides occupying the same codon and between nucleotides forming a base pair...

Global Structure of a Three-Way Junction in a Phi29 Packaging RNA Dimer Determined Using Site-Directed Spin Labeling

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Xiaojun; Tung, Chang-Shung; Sowa, Glenna; Hatmal, Ma' mon M.; Haworth, Ian S.; Qin, Peter Z.

2012-02-08

The condensation of bacteriophage phi29 genomic DNA into its preformed procapsid requires the DNA packaging motor, which is the strongest known biological motor. The packaging motor is an intricate ring-shaped protein/RNA complex, and its function requires an RNA component called packaging RNA (pRNA). Current structural information on pRNA is limited, which hinders studies of motor function. Here, we used site-directed spin labeling to map the conformation of a pRNA three-way junction that bridges binding sites for the motor ATPase and the procapsid. The studies were carried out on a pRNA dimer, which is the simplest ring-shaped pRNA complex and serves as a functional intermediate during motor assembly. Using a nucleotide-independent labeling scheme, stable nitroxide radicals were attached to eight specific pRNA sites without perturbing RNA folding and dimer formation, and a total of 17 internitroxide distances spanning the three-way junction were measured using Double Electron-Electron Resonance spectroscopy. The measured distances, together with steric chemical constraints, were used to select 3662 viable three-way junction models from a pool of 65 billion. The results reveal a similar conformation among the viable models, with two of the helices (HT and HL) adopting an acute bend. This is in contrast to a recently reported pRNA tetramer crystal structure, in which HT and HL stack onto each other linearly. The studies establish a new method for mapping global structures of complex RNA molecules, and provide information on pRNA conformation that aids investigations of phi29 packaging motor and developments of pRNA-based nanomedicine and nanomaterial.

tRNA gene diversity in the three domains of life

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Kosuke eFujishima

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Transfer RNA (tRNA is widely known for its key role in decoding mRNA into protein. Despite their necessity and relatively short nucleotide sequences, a large diversity of gene structures and RNA secondary structures of pre-tRNAs and mature tRNAs have recently been discovered in the three domains of life. Growing evidences of disrupted tRNA genes in the genomes of Archaea reveals unique gene structures such as, intron-containing tRNA, split tRNA, and permuted tRNA. Coding sequence for these tRNAs are either separated with introns, fragmented, or permuted at the genome level. Although evolutionary scenario behind the tRNA gene disruption is still unclear, diversity of tRNA structure seems to be co-evolved with their processing enzyme, so-called RNA splicing endonuclease. Metazoan mitochondrial tRNAs (mtRNAs are known for their unique lack of either one or two arms from the typical tRNA cloverleaf structure, while still maintaining functionality. Recently identified nematode-specific V-arm containing tRNAs (nev-tRNAs possess long variable arms that are specific to eukaryotic class II tRNASer and tRNALeu but also decode class I tRNA codons. Moreover, many tRNA-like sequences have been found in the genomes of different organisms and viruses. Thus this review is aimed to cover the latest knowledge on tRNA gene diversity and further recapitulate the evolutionary and biological aspects that caused such uniqueness.

An RNA Domain Imparts Specificity and Selectivity to a Viral DNA Packaging Motor

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Wei; Jardine, Paul J.

2015-01-01

ABSTRACT During assembly, double-stranded DNA viruses, including bacteriophages and herpesviruses, utilize a powerful molecular motor to package their genomic DNA into a preformed viral capsid. An integral component of the packaging motor in the Bacillus subtilis bacteriophage ϕ29 is a viral genome-encoded pentameric ring of RNA (prohead RNA [pRNA]). pRNA is a 174-base transcript comprised of two domains, domains I and II. Early studies initially isolated a 120-base form (domain I only) that retains high biological activity in vitro; hence, no function could be assigned to domain II. Here we define a role for this domain in the packaging process. DNA packaging using restriction digests of ϕ29 DNA showed that motors with the 174-base pRNA supported the correct polarity of DNA packaging, selectively packaging the DNA left end. In contrast, motors containing the 120-base pRNA had compromised specificity, packaging both left- and right-end fragments. The presence of domain II also provides selectivity in competition assays with genomes from related phages. Furthermore, motors with the 174-base pRNA were restrictive, in that they packaged only one DNA fragment into the head, whereas motors with the 120-base pRNA packaged several fragments into the head, indicating multiple initiation events. These results show that domain II imparts specificity and stringency to the motor during the packaging initiation events that precede DNA translocation. Heteromeric rings of pRNA demonstrated that one or two copies of domain II were sufficient to impart this selectivity/stringency. Although ϕ29 differs from other double-stranded DNA phages in having an RNA motor component, the function provided by pRNA is carried on the motor protein components in other phages. IMPORTANCE During virus assembly, genome packaging involves the delivery of newly synthesized viral nucleic acid into a protein shell. In the double-stranded DNA phages and herpesviruses, this is accomplished by a powerful

An RNA Domain Imparts Specificity and Selectivity to a Viral DNA Packaging Motor.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Wei; Jardine, Paul J; Grimes, Shelley

2015-12-01

During assembly, double-stranded DNA viruses, including bacteriophages and herpesviruses, utilize a powerful molecular motor to package their genomic DNA into a preformed viral capsid. An integral component of the packaging motor in the Bacillus subtilis bacteriophage ϕ29 is a viral genome-encoded pentameric ring of RNA (prohead RNA [pRNA]). pRNA is a 174-base transcript comprised of two domains, domains I and II. Early studies initially isolated a 120-base form (domain I only) that retains high biological activity in vitro; hence, no function could be assigned to domain II. Here we define a role for this domain in the packaging process. DNA packaging using restriction digests of ϕ29 DNA showed that motors with the 174-base pRNA supported the correct polarity of DNA packaging, selectively packaging the DNA left end. In contrast, motors containing the 120-base pRNA had compromised specificity, packaging both left- and right-end fragments. The presence of domain II also provides selectivity in competition assays with genomes from related phages. Furthermore, motors with the 174-base pRNA were restrictive, in that they packaged only one DNA fragment into the head, whereas motors with the 120-base pRNA packaged several fragments into the head, indicating multiple initiation events. These results show that domain II imparts specificity and stringency to the motor during the packaging initiation events that precede DNA translocation. Heteromeric rings of pRNA demonstrated that one or two copies of domain II were sufficient to impart this selectivity/stringency. Although ϕ29 differs from other double-stranded DNA phages in having an RNA motor component, the function provided by pRNA is carried on the motor protein components in other phages. During virus assembly, genome packaging involves the delivery of newly synthesized viral nucleic acid into a protein shell. In the double-stranded DNA phages and herpesviruses, this is accomplished by a powerful molecular motor

Differential accumulation of nif structural gene mRNA in Azotobacter vinelandii.

Science.gov (United States)

Hamilton, Trinity L; Jacobson, Marty; Ludwig, Marcus; Boyd, Eric S; Bryant, Donald A; Dean, Dennis R; Peters, John W

2011-09-01

Northern analysis was employed to investigate mRNA produced by mutant strains of Azotobacter vinelandii with defined deletions in the nif structural genes and in the intergenic noncoding regions. The results indicate that intergenic RNA secondary structures effect the differential accumulation of transcripts, supporting the high Fe protein-to-MoFe protein ratio required for optimal diazotrophic growth.

Stochastic sampling of the RNA structural alignment space.

Science.gov (United States)

Harmanci, Arif Ozgun; Sharma, Gaurav; Mathews, David H

2009-07-01

A novel method is presented for predicting the common secondary structures and alignment of two homologous RNA sequences by sampling the 'structural alignment' space, i.e. the joint space of their alignments and common secondary structures. The structural alignment space is sampled according to a pseudo-Boltzmann distribution based on a pseudo-free energy change that combines base pairing probabilities from a thermodynamic model and alignment probabilities from a hidden Markov model. By virtue of the implicit comparative analysis between the two sequences, the method offers an improvement over single sequence sampling of the Boltzmann ensemble. A cluster analysis shows that the samples obtained from joint sampling of the structural alignment space cluster more closely than samples generated by the single sequence method. On average, the representative (centroid) structure and alignment of the most populated cluster in the sample of structures and alignments generated by joint sampling are more accurate than single sequence sampling and alignment based on sequence alone, respectively. The 'best' centroid structure that is closest to the known structure among all the centroids is, on average, more accurate than structure predictions of other methods. Additionally, cluster analysis identifies, on average, a few clusters, whose centroids can be presented as alternative candidates. The source code for the proposed method can be downloaded at http://rna.urmc.rochester.edu.

Structures of a putative RNA 5-methyluridine methyltransferase, Thermus thermophilus TTHA1280, and its complex with S-adenosyl-l-homocysteine

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pioszak, Augen A.; Murayama, Kazutaka; Nakagawa, Noriko; Ebihara, Akio; Kuramitsu, Seiki; Shirouzu, Mikako; Yokoyama, Shigeyuki

2005-01-01

Three structures of a putative RNA 5-methyluridine methyltransferase from T. thermophilus, including its complex with S-adenosyl-l-homocysteine, are presented. The structures reveal the mode of cofactor binding, architecture of the putative active site, and the presence of a deep cleft adjacent to the active site that may bind RNA. The Thermus thermophilus hypothetical protein TTHA1280 belongs to a family of predicted S-adenosyl-l-methionine (AdoMet) dependent RNA methyltransferases (MTases) present in many bacterial and archaeal species. Inspection of amino-acid sequence motifs common to class I Rossmann-fold-like MTases suggested a specific role as an RNA 5-methyluridine MTase. Selenomethionine (SeMet) labelled and native versions of the protein were expressed, purified and crystallized. Two crystal forms of the SeMet-labelled apoprotein were obtained: SeMet-ApoI and SeMet-ApoII. Cocrystallization of the native protein with S-adenosyl-l-homocysteine (AdoHcy) yielded a third crystal form, Native-AdoHcy. The SeMet-ApoI structure was solved by the multiple anomalous dispersion method and refined at 2.55 Å resolution. The SeMet-ApoII and Native-AdoHcy structures were solved by molecular replacement and refined at 1.80 and 2.60 Å, respectively. TTHA1280 formed a homodimer in the crystals and in solution. Each subunit folds into a three-domain structure composed of a small N-terminal PUA domain, a central α/β-domain and a C-terminal Rossmann-fold-like MTase domain. The three domains form an overall clamp-like shape, with the putative active site facing a deep cleft. The architecture of the active site is consistent with specific recognition of uridine and catalysis of methyl transfer to the 5-carbon position. The cleft is suitable in size and charge distribution for binding single-stranded RNA.

Topological classification and enumeration of RNA structures by genus

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Joergen Ellegard; Penner, Robert C.; Reidys, Christian

2013-01-01

To an RNA pseudoknot structure is naturally associated a topological surface, which has its associated genus, and structures can thus be classified by the genus. Based on earlier work of Harer-Zagier, we compute the generating function for the number of those structures of fixed genus and minimum...

Linking maternal and somatic 5S rRNA types with different sequence-specific non-LTR retrotransposons.

Science.gov (United States)

Locati, Mauro D; Pagano, Johanna F B; Ensink, Wim A; van Olst, Marina; van Leeuwen, Selina; Nehrdich, Ulrike; Zhu, Kongju; Spaink, Herman P; Girard, Geneviève; Rauwerda, Han; Jonker, Martijs J; Dekker, Rob J; Breit, Timo M

2017-04-01

5S rRNA is a ribosomal core component, transcribed from many gene copies organized in genomic repeats. Some eukaryotic species have two 5S rRNA types defined by their predominant expression in oogenesis or adult tissue. Our next-generation sequencing study on zebrafish egg, embryo, and adult tissue identified maternal-type 5S rRNA that is exclusively accumulated during oogenesis, replaced throughout the embryogenesis by a somatic-type, and thus virtually absent in adult somatic tissue. The maternal-type 5S rDNA contains several thousands of gene copies on chromosome 4 in tandem repeats with small intergenic regions, whereas the somatic-type is present in only 12 gene copies on chromosome 18 with large intergenic regions. The nine-nucleotide variation between the two 5S rRNA types likely affects TFIII binding and riboprotein L5 binding, probably leading to storage of maternal-type rRNA. Remarkably, these sequence differences are located exactly at the sequence-specific target site for genome integration by the 5S rRNA-specific Mutsu retrotransposon family. Thus, we could define maternal- and somatic-type MutsuDr subfamilies. Furthermore, we identified four additional maternal-type and two new somatic-type MutsuDr subfamilies, each with their own target sequence. This target-site specificity, frequently intact maternal-type retrotransposon elements, plus specific presence of Mutsu retrotransposon RNA and piRNA in egg and adult tissue, suggest an involvement of retrotransposons in achieving the differential copy number of the two types of 5S rDNA loci. © 2017 Locati et al.; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the RNA Society.

Evolution of the RNase P RNA structural domain in Leptospira spp

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ravishankar, Vigneshwaran; Ahmed, Ahmed; Sivagnanam, Ulaganathan; Muthuraman, Krishnaraja; Karthikaichamy, Anbarasu; Wilson, Herald A.; Devendran, Ajay; Hartskeerl, Rudy A.; Raj, Stephen M. L.

2014-01-01

We have employed the RNase P RNA (RPR) gene, which is present as single copy in chromosome I of Leptospira spp. to investigate the phylogeny of structural domains present in the RNA subunit of the tRNA processing enzyme, RNase P. RPR gene sequences of 150 strains derived from NCBI database along

α-Fetoprotein promoter-driven Cre/LoxP-switched RNA interference for hepatocellular carcinoma tissue-specific target therapy.

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Yuan-Fei Peng

Full Text Available RNA interference (RNAi has recently emerged as a potential treatment modality for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC therapy, but the lack of cellular targets and sustained efficacy limits its application. The purpose of this study is to develop an HCC tissue-specific RNAi system and investigate its possibility for HCC treatment.Two different HCC-specific RNAi systems in which therapeutic miRNA or shRNA against target gene (Beclin 1 was directly or indirectly driven by alpha-fetoprotein promoter (AFP-miRNA and AFP-Cre/LoxP-shRNA were constructed. Human HCC cell lines (HepG2, Hep3B and HCCLM3 and non-HCC cell lines (L-02, Hela and SW1116 were infected with the systems. The effectiveness and tissue-specificity of the systems were examined by Q-PCR and western blot analysis. The efficacy of the systems was further tested in mouse model of HCC by intravenous or intratumoral administration. The feasibility of the system for HCC treatment was evaluated by applying the system as adjuvant therapy to enhance sorafenib treatment. An AFP-Cre/LoxP-shRNA system targeting Atg5 gene (AFP-Cre/LoxP-shRNA-Atg5 was constructed and its efficacy in sensitizing HCC cells (MHCC97L/PLC to sorafenib treatment was examined by apoptosis assay in vitro and tumorigenesis assay in vivo.The AFP-miRNA system could silence target gene (Beclin 1 but required a high titer which was lethal to target cells. The AFP-Cre/LoxP-shRNA system could efficiently knockdown target gene while maintain high HCC specificity. Intratumoral injection of the AFP-Cre/LoxP-shRNA system could efficiently silence target gene (Beclin 1 in vivo while intravenous administration could not. The AFP-Cre/LoxP-shRNA system target Atg5 gene could significantly sensitize MHCC97L/PLC cells to sorafenib-induced apoptosis in vitro and tumor growth suppression in vivo.An efficient HCC tissue-specific RNAi system (AFP-Cre/LoxP-shRNA was successfully established. The system provides a usable tool for HCC-specific RNAi

Primary structure of the α-subunit of Na+, K+-ATPase. II. Isolation, reverse transcription, and cloning of messenger RNA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Petrukhin, K.E.; Broude, N.E.; Arsenyan, S.G.; Grishin, A.V.; Dzhandzhugazyan, K.N.; Modyanov, N.N.

1986-01-01

The messenger RNA coding the α-subunit of Na + ,K + -ATPase has been isolated from the outer medullary layer of porcine kidneys. The mRNA gives a specific hybridization band in the 25S-26S region with three oligonucleotide probes synthesized on the basis of information on the structure of three peptides isolated from a tryptic hydrolyzate of the α-subunit of Na + ,K + -ATPase. The translation of the mRNA in Xenopus laevis oocytes followed by immunochemical identification of the products of synthesis confirmed the presence of the mRNA of the α-subunit of Na + ,K + -ATPase in an enriched fraction of poly(A + )-RNA. This preparation has been used for the synthesis of cloning of double-stranded cDNA

Molecular Archaeology of Flaviviridae Untranslated Regions: Duplicated RNA Structures in the Replication Enhancer of Flaviviruses and Pestiviruses Emerged via Convergent Evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Gritsun, Dmitri J.; Jones, Ian M.; Gould, Ernest A.; Gritsun, Tamara S.

2014-01-01

RNA secondary structures in the 3′untranslated regions (3′UTR) of the viruses of the family Flaviviridae, previously identified as essential (promoters) or beneficial (enhancers) for replication, have been analysed. Duplicated enhancer elements are revealed as a global feature in the evolution of the 3′UTR of distantly related viruses within the genera Flavivirus and Pestivirus. For the flaviviruses, duplicated structures occur in the 3′UTR of all four distantly related ecological virus subgroups (tick-borne, mosquito-borne, no known vector and insect-specific flaviviruses (ISFV). RNA structural differences distinguish tick-borne flaviviruses with discrete pathogenetic characteristics. For Aedes- and Culex-associated ISFV, secondary RNA structures with different conformations display numerous short ssRNA direct repeats, exposed as loops and bulges. Long quadruplicate regions comprise almost the entire 3′UTR of Culex-associated ISFV. Extended duplicated sequence and associated RNA structures were also discovered in the 3′UTR of pestiviruses. In both the Flavivirus and Pestivirus genera, duplicated RNA structures were localized to the enhancer regions of the 3′UTR suggesting an adaptive role predominantly in wild-type viruses. We propose sequence reiteration might act as a scaffold for dimerization of proteins involved in assembly of viral replicase complexes. Numerous nucleotide repeats exposed as loops/bulges might also interfere with host immune responses acting as a molecular sponge to sequester key host proteins or microRNAs. PMID:24647143

Analysis of 16S rRNA and mxaF genes revealing insights into Methylobacterium niche-specific plant association

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Dourado, Manuella Nóbrega; Andreote, Fernando Dini; Dini-Andreote, Francisco; Conti, Raphael; Araújo, Janete Magali; Araújo, Welington Luiz

2012-01-01

The genus Methylobacterium comprises pink-pigmented facultative methylotrophic (PPFM) bacteria, known to be an important plant-associated bacterial group. Species of this group, described as plant-nodulating, have the dual capacity of producing cytokinin and enzymes, such as pectinase and cellulase, involved in systemic resistance induction and nitrogen fixation under specific plant environmental conditions. The aim hereby was to evaluate the phylogenetic distribution of Methylobacterium spp. isolates from different host plants. Thus, a comparative analysis between sequences from structural (16S rRNA) and functional mxaF (which codifies for a subunit of the enzyme methanol dehydrogenase) ubiquitous genes, was undertaken. Notably, some Methylobacterium spp. isolates are generalists through colonizing more than one host plant, whereas others are exclusively found in certain specific plant-species. Congruency between phylogeny and specific host inhabitance was higher in the mxaF gene than in the 16S rRNA, a possible indication of function-based selection in this niche. Therefore, in a first stage, plant colonization by Methylobacterium spp. could represent generalist behavior, possibly related to microbial competition and adaptation to a plant environment. Otherwise, niche-specific colonization is apparently impelled by the host plant. PMID:22481887

Analysis of 16S rRNA and mxaF genes reveling insights into Methylobacterium niche-specific plant association

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Manuella Nóbrega Dourado

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The genus Methylobacterium comprises pink-pigmented facultative methylotrophic (PPFM bacteria, known to be an important plant-associated bacterial group. Species of this group, described as plant-nodulating, have the dual capacity of producing cytokinin and enzymes, such as pectinase and cellulase, involved in systemic resistance induction and nitrogen fixation under specific plant environmental conditions. The aim hereby was to evaluate the phylogenetic distribution of Methylobacterium spp. isolates from different host plants. Thus, a comparative analysis between sequences from structural (16S rRNA and functional mxaF (which codifies for a subunit of the enzyme methanol dehydrogenase ubiquitous genes, was undertaken. Notably, some Methylobacterium spp. isolates are generalists through colonizing more than one host plant, whereas others are exclusively found in certain specific plant-species. Congruency between phylogeny and specific host inhabitance was higher in the mxaF gene than in the 16S rRNA, a possible indication of function-based selection in this niche. Therefore, in a first stage, plant colonization by Methylobacterium spp. could represent generalist behavior, possibly related to microbial competition and adaptation to a plant environment. Otherwise, niche-specific colonization is apparently impelled by the host plant.

Analysis of 16S rRNA and mxaF genes revealing insights into Methylobacterium niche-specific plant association.

Science.gov (United States)

Dourado, Manuella Nóbrega; Andreote, Fernando Dini; Dini-Andreote, Francisco; Conti, Raphael; Araújo, Janete Magali; Araújo, Welington Luiz

2012-01-01

The genus Methylobacterium comprises pink-pigmented facultative methylotrophic (PPFM) bacteria, known to be an important plant-associated bacterial group. Species of this group, described as plant-nodulating, have the dual capacity of producing cytokinin and enzymes, such as pectinase and cellulase, involved in systemic resistance induction and nitrogen fixation under specific plant environmental conditions. The aim hereby was to evaluate the phylogenetic distribution of Methylobacterium spp. isolates from different host plants. Thus, a comparative analysis between sequences from structural (16S rRNA) and functional mxaF (which codifies for a subunit of the enzyme methanol dehydrogenase) ubiquitous genes, was undertaken. Notably, some Methylobacterium spp. isolates are generalists through colonizing more than one host plant, whereas others are exclusively found in certain specific plant-species. Congruency between phylogeny and specific host inhabitance was higher in the mxaF gene than in the 16S rRNA, a possible indication of function-based selection in this niche. Therefore, in a first stage, plant colonization by Methylobacterium spp. could represent generalist behavior, possibly related to microbial competition and adaptation to a plant environment. Otherwise, niche-specific colonization is apparently impelled by the host plant.

Modeling the structure of RNA molecules with small-angle X-ray scattering data.

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Michal Jan Gajda

Full Text Available We propose a novel fragment assembly method for low-resolution modeling of RNA and show how it may be used along with small-angle X-ray solution scattering (SAXS data to model low-resolution structures of particles having as many as 12 independent secondary structure elements. We assessed this model-building procedure by using both artificial data on a previously proposed benchmark and publicly available data. With the artificial data, SAXS-guided models show better similarity to native structures than ROSETTA decoys. The publicly available data showed that SAXS-guided models can be used to reinterpret RNA structures previously deposited in the Protein Data Bank. Our approach allows for fast and efficient building of de novo models of RNA using approximate secondary structures that can be readily obtained from existing bioinformatic approaches. We also offer a rigorous assessment of the resolving power of SAXS in the case of small RNA structures, along with a small multimetric benchmark of the proposed method.

An updated 18S rRNA phylogeny of tunicates based on mixture and secondary structure models

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Shenkar Noa

2009-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Tunicates have been recently revealed to be the closest living relatives of vertebrates. Yet, with more than 2500 described species, details of their evolutionary history are still obscure. From a molecular point of view, tunicate phylogenetic relationships have been mostly studied based on analyses of 18S rRNA sequences, which indicate several major clades at odds with the traditional class-level arrangements. Nonetheless, substantial uncertainty remains about the phylogenetic relationships and taxonomic status of key groups such as the Aplousobranchia, Appendicularia, and Thaliacea. Results Thirty new complete 18S rRNA sequences were acquired from previously unsampled tunicate species, with special focus on groups presenting high evolutionary rate. The updated 18S rRNA dataset has been aligned with respect to the constraint on homology imposed by the rRNA secondary structure. A probabilistic framework of phylogenetic reconstruction was adopted to accommodate the particular evolutionary dynamics of this ribosomal marker. Detailed Bayesian analyses were conducted under the non-parametric CAT mixture model accounting for site-specific heterogeneity of the evolutionary process, and under RNA-specific doublet models accommodating the occurrence of compensatory substitutions in stem regions. Our results support the division of tunicates into three major clades: 1 Phlebobranchia + Thaliacea + Aplousobranchia, 2 Appendicularia, and 3 Stolidobranchia, but the position of Appendicularia could not be firmly resolved. Our study additionally reveals that most Aplousobranchia evolve at extremely high rates involving changes in secondary structure of their 18S rRNA, with the exception of the family Clavelinidae, which appears to be slowly evolving. This extreme rate heterogeneity precluded resolving with certainty the exact phylogenetic placement of Aplousobranchia. Finally, the best fitting secondary-structure and CAT-mixture models

Secondary structure of 5S RNA: NMR experiments on RNA molecules partially labeled with Nitrogen-15

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gewirth, D.T.; Abo, S.R.; Leontis, N.B.; Moore, P.B.

1987-01-01

A method has been found for reassembling fragment 1 of Escherichia coli 5S RNA from mixtures containing strand III (bases 69-87) and the complex consisting of strand II (bases 89-120) and strand IV (bases 1-11). The reassembled molecule is identical with unreconstituted fragment 1. With this technique, fragment 1 molecules have been constructed 15 N-labeled either in strand III or in the strand II-strand IV complex. Spectroscopic data obtained with these partially labeled molecules show that the terminal helix of 5S RNA includes the GU and GC base pairs at positions 9 and 10 which the standard model for 5S secondary structure predicts but that these base pairs are unstable both in the fragment and in native 5S RNA. The data also assign three resonances to the helix V region of the molecule (bases 70-77 and 99-106). None of these resonances has a normal chemical shift even though two of them correspond to AU or GU base pairs in the standard model. The implications of these findings for the authors understanding of the structure of 5S RNA and its complex with ribosomal protein L25 are discussed

Comparative mRNA and microRNA expression profiling of three genitourinary cancers reveals common hallmarks and cancer-specific molecular events.

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Xianxin Li

Full Text Available Genome-wide gene expression profile using deep sequencing technologies can drive the discovery of cancer biomarkers and therapeutic targets. Such efforts are often limited to profiling the expression signature of either mRNA or microRNA (miRNA in a single type of cancer.Here we provided an integrated analysis of the genome-wide mRNA and miRNA expression profiles of three different genitourinary cancers: carcinomas of the bladder, kidney and testis.Our results highlight the general or cancer-specific roles of several genes and miRNAs that may serve as candidate oncogenes or suppressors of tumor development. Further comparative analyses at the systems level revealed that significant aberrations of the cell adhesion process, p53 signaling, calcium signaling, the ECM-receptor and cell cycle pathways, the DNA repair and replication processes and the immune and inflammatory response processes were the common hallmarks of human cancers. Gene sets showing testicular cancer-specific deregulation patterns were mainly implicated in processes related to male reproductive function, and general disruptions of multiple metabolic pathways and processes related to cell migration were the characteristic molecular events for renal and bladder cancer, respectively. Furthermore, we also demonstrated that tumors with the same histological origins and genes with similar functions tended to group together in a clustering analysis. By assessing the correlation between the expression of each miRNA and its targets, we determined that deregulation of 'key' miRNAs may result in the global aberration of one or more pathways or processes as a whole.This systematic analysis deciphered the molecular phenotypes of three genitourinary cancers and investigated their variations at the miRNA level simultaneously. Our results provided a valuable source for future studies and highlighted some promising genes, miRNAs, pathways and processes that may be useful for diagnostic or

Large scale comparative codon-pair context analysis unveils general rules that fine-tune evolution of mRNA primary structure.

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Gabriela Moura

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Codon usage and codon-pair context are important gene primary structure features that influence mRNA decoding fidelity. In order to identify general rules that shape codon-pair context and minimize mRNA decoding error, we have carried out a large scale comparative codon-pair context analysis of 119 fully sequenced genomes. METHODOLOGIES/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We have developed mathematical and software tools for large scale comparative codon-pair context analysis. These methodologies unveiled general and species specific codon-pair context rules that govern evolution of mRNAs in the 3 domains of life. We show that evolution of bacterial and archeal mRNA primary structure is mainly dependent on constraints imposed by the translational machinery, while in eukaryotes DNA methylation and tri-nucleotide repeats impose strong biases on codon-pair context. CONCLUSIONS: The data highlight fundamental differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic mRNA decoding rules, which are partially independent of codon usage.

nRC: non-coding RNA Classifier based on structural features.

Science.gov (United States)

Fiannaca, Antonino; La Rosa, Massimo; La Paglia, Laura; Rizzo, Riccardo; Urso, Alfonso

2017-01-01

Non-coding RNA (ncRNA) are small non-coding sequences involved in gene expression regulation of many biological processes and diseases. The recent discovery of a large set of different ncRNAs with biologically relevant roles has opened the way to develop methods able to discriminate between the different ncRNA classes. Moreover, the lack of knowledge about the complete mechanisms in regulative processes, together with the development of high-throughput technologies, has required the help of bioinformatics tools in addressing biologists and clinicians with a deeper comprehension of the functional roles of ncRNAs. In this work, we introduce a new ncRNA classification tool, nRC (non-coding RNA Classifier). Our approach is based on features extraction from the ncRNA secondary structure together with a supervised classification algorithm implementing a deep learning architecture based on convolutional neural networks. We tested our approach for the classification of 13 different ncRNA classes. We obtained classification scores, using the most common statistical measures. In particular, we reach an accuracy and sensitivity score of about 74%. The proposed method outperforms other similar classification methods based on secondary structure features and machine learning algorithms, including the RNAcon tool that, to date, is the reference classifier. nRC tool is freely available as a docker image at https://hub.docker.com/r/tblab/nrc/. The source code of nRC tool is also available at https://github.com/IcarPA-TBlab/nrc.

Poliovirus RNA synthesis in vitro: structural elements and antibody inhibition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Semler, B.L.; Hanecak, R.; Dorner, L.F.; Anderson, C.W.; Wimmer, E.

1983-01-01

The poliovirus RNA polymerase complex has been analyzed by immunoautoradiography using antibody probes derived from purified replicase (P3) region viral polypeptides. Antibody preparations made against the polio RNA polymerase, P3-4b, detected a previously unreported cellular protein that copurifies with the RNA polymerase. An IgG fraction purified from rabbit antiserum to polypeptide P3-2, a precursor fo the RNA polymerase, specifically inhibits poliovirus RNA synthesis in vitro. The authors have also immunoprecipitated a 60,000-dalton protein (P3-4a) with antiserum to protein P3-4b and have determined the precise genomic map position of this protein by automated Edman degradation. Protein P3-4a originates by cleavage of the RNA polymerase precursor at a glutamine-glucine amino acid pair not previously reported to be a viral cleavage site