Journal
JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
Volume 425, Issue 20, Pages 3790-3798Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2013.05.017
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- National Institutes of Health [R01GM087721]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
We have obtained a 1.55-angstrom crystal structure of a hammerhead ribozynne derived from Schistosoma mansoni under conditions that permit detailed observations of Na+ ion binding in the ribozyme's active site. At least two such Na+ ions are observed. The first Na+ ion binds to the N7 of G10.1 and the adjacent A9 phosphate in a manner identical with that previously observed for divalent cations. A second Na+ ion binds to the Hoogsteen face of G12, the general base in the hammerhead cleavage reaction, thereby potentially dissipating the negative charge of the catalytically active enolate form of the nucleotide base. A potential but more ambiguous third site bridges the A9 and scissile phosphates in a manner consistent with that of previous predictions. Hammerhead ribozymes have been observed to be active in the presence of high concentrations of monovalent cations, including Nat, but the mechanism by which monovalent cations substitute for divalent cations in hammerhead catalysis remains unclear. Our results enable us to suggest that Na+ directly and specifically substitutes for divalent cations in the hammerhead active site. The detailed geometry of the pre-catalytic active-site complex is also revealed with a new level of precision, thanks to the quality of the electron density maps obtained from what is currently the highest-resolution ribozyme structure in the Protein Data Bank. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available