The role of protein specificity in the evolution of regulatory RNAs

核糖核酸（RNA）在细胞中发挥着许多作用，其中一个作用是近年来才被清楚地认识到的，即控制代谢物的产生和对应激作出反应。在不同的生物体中，RNA调节因子通常是非常不同的；人们认为它们比蛋白质调节因子更多样化，或者至少更难识别。本研究将研究不同细菌种类中相似的核糖体蛋白如何进化以识别不同的RNA调节因子。该项目将为本科生和研究生提供大量培训机会，项目团队将继续向波士顿地区高危社区的女学生介绍科学。本项目的目的是研究蛋白质特异性与自然界中观察到的RNA基因调节因子多样性之间的关系。本项目中使用的模型系统是细菌核糖体蛋白合成的RNA调节因子及其蛋白相互作用伙伴。其中一些调节因子在大多数细菌中是保守的；在其他情况下，不同细菌门之间存在着非凡的多样性。我们假设，与几种不同的自然调节因子相互作用的蛋白质可能比与保守调节因子相互作用的蛋白质有更大的RNA伴侣池。为了研究这一点，我们将首先使用体外方法来比较来自不同生物体的核糖体蛋白的RNA相互作用池。然后将评估从这种方法中获得的蛋白质相互作用rna，以确定哪些额外的特征是必要的，以允许对细胞内蛋白质过度表达的反应进行调节。通过比较具有许多天然RNA结合伴侣的蛋白质与具有单个保守RNA伴侣的蛋白质的结果，我们将确定蛋白质特异性在驱动自然界中观察到的调节RNA多样性方面所起的作用。

Ribonucleic acids (RNA) play many roles in the cell, and one of such roles that became clear only in the recent years is to control production of metabolites and to respond to stresses. RNA regulators are often very different in different organisms; it is thought that they are more diverse, or at least harder to recognize, than protein regulators. This research will study how similar ribosomal proteins in different bacterial species have evolved to recognize different RNA regulators. This project will provide numerous training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, and the project team will continue their work in introducing school girls in the at-risk communities in Boston area to science.The objective of this project is to examine the relationship between protein specificity and the diversity of RNA gene regulators observed in nature. The model systems used in this project are the bacterial RNA regulators of ribosomal protein synthesis and their protein interaction partners. Some of these regulators are conserved in most bacteria; in other cases there is extraordinary diversity across different bacterial phyla. We hypothesize that proteins interacting with several diverse natural regulators are likely to have larger pools of RNA partners compared to proteins that interact with conserved regulators. To investigate this we will first use in vitro approaches to compare the RNA interaction pools of ribosomal proteins from different organisms. The protein-interacting RNAs that are derived from this approach will then be assessed to determine what additional features are necessary to allow regulation in response to protein over-expression within cells. By comparing the results from proteins that have many natural RNA-binding partners with those from proteins that have a single conserved RNA partner, we will determine the role that protein specificity plays in driving diversity of regulatory RNAs observed in nature.