COMBINED SAXS & NMR TO STUDY THE STRUCTURE & DYNAMICS OF LARGE RNA MOLECULES

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Less than 2% of the human genome is coded for proteins, yet more than 45% of the genome is transcribed into RNA. Increasing amount of evidence indicates the vast untranslated non-coding (nc) RNAs play much wider role in biological process than previously believed. In contrast to the roles that RNA is playing in biological processes, our knowledge about the three-dimensional structures of RNA is limited because they are difficult to crystallize and RNAs with normal functional sizes are too large for structure determination using solution NMR. Solution X-ray scattering are known indicative of overall shape of bio-macromolecules. Recently, our group have developed a combined approach in which we incorporate in-house NMR measurements, synchrotron-based solution X-ray scattering, biochemical probing and computational methods to resolve high-resolution structures for large RNAs (e 100 nt) in solution. The advantage of this approach lies in the facts that NMR and X-ray scattering complement each other and all measurements can be carried out in the same solution condition which is relevant to physiologic condition. Our group is interested in the high-resolution solution structures and dynamics of ncRNAs and RNA complexes.