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Nithin C, Kmiecik S, Błaszczyk R, Nowicka J, Tuszyńska I. Comparative analysis of RNA 3D structure prediction methods: towards enhanced modeling of RNA-ligand interactions. Nucleic Acids Res 2024; 52:7465-7486. [PMID: 38917327 PMCID: PMC11260495 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkae541] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2024] [Revised: 05/23/2024] [Accepted: 06/16/2024] [Indexed: 06/27/2024] Open
Abstract
Accurate RNA structure models are crucial for designing small molecule ligands that modulate their functions. This study assesses six standalone RNA 3D structure prediction methods-DeepFoldRNA, RhoFold, BRiQ, FARFAR2, SimRNA and Vfold2, excluding web-based tools due to intellectual property concerns. We focus on reproducing the RNA structure existing in RNA-small molecule complexes, particularly on the ability to model ligand binding sites. Using a comprehensive set of RNA structures from the PDB, which includes diverse structural elements, we found that machine learning (ML)-based methods effectively predict global RNA folds but are less accurate with local interactions. Conversely, non-ML-based methods demonstrate higher precision in modeling intramolecular interactions, particularly with secondary structure restraints. Importantly, ligand-binding site accuracy can remain sufficiently high for practical use, even if the overall model quality is not optimal. With the recent release of AlphaFold 3, we included this advanced method in our tests. Benchmark subsets containing new structures, not used in the training of the tested ML methods, show that AlphaFold 3's performance was comparable to other ML-based methods, albeit with some challenges in accurately modeling ligand binding sites. This study underscores the importance of enhancing binding site prediction accuracy and the challenges in modeling RNA-ligand interactions accurately.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chandran Nithin
- Molecure SA, 02-089 Warsaw, Poland
- Laboratory of Computational Biology, Biological and Chemical Research Center, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Warsaw, 02-089 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Sebastian Kmiecik
- Laboratory of Computational Biology, Biological and Chemical Research Center, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Warsaw, 02-089 Warsaw, Poland
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2
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Parveen A, Elkordy AA. Brief Insights into mRNA Vaccines: Their Successful Production and Nanoformulation for Effective Response against COVID-19 and Their Potential Success for Influenza A and B. Pathogens 2024; 13:500. [PMID: 38921798 PMCID: PMC11206352 DOI: 10.3390/pathogens13060500] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2024] [Revised: 06/06/2024] [Accepted: 06/07/2024] [Indexed: 06/27/2024] Open
Abstract
A mRNA vaccine is a type of vaccine that induces an immune response. Antigen-encoding mRNA is delivered via vaccine carriers into the immune cells, which are produced because of antigen-encoding mRNA translation, a protein. For example, COVID-19 mRNA vaccines produce the spike protein of the COVID-19 virus, whereas for influenza virus, mRNA vaccines target the haemagglutinin protein to treat the flu, and it requires modifications depending on the pandemic or seasonal viruses as it is capable of adapting the immune response, which makes the development of vaccines arduous. The protein molecule promotes an adaptive immune response that eliminates and terminates the corresponding virus or pathogen. There are many challenges to delivering an mRNA vaccine into the body; hence, the encapsulation of the mRNA (usually within lipid nanoparticles) is necessary to protect the mRNA from the body's surrounding environment. In this review article, we focus mainly on the production, formulation, and stabilization of mRNA vaccines in general, elaborating more on and focusing more on SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19, and influenza viruses, which have become a major concern as these viruses have turned into life-threatening diseases.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Amal Ali Elkordy
- School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences and Wellbeing, University of Sunderland, Sunderland SR1 3SD, UK;
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3
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Awad SI, Smadi OA, Tomeh MF, Alzghoul SM. A guideline for the distance measurement plans of site-directed spin labels for structural prediction of nucleic acids. J Mol Model 2023; 30:16. [PMID: 38157075 DOI: 10.1007/s00894-023-05808-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2023] [Accepted: 12/11/2023] [Indexed: 01/03/2024]
Abstract
CONTEXT AND RESULTS Site-directed spin labeling (SDSL) combined with electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy methods has been successfully used to predict the structures of nucleic acids. These methods measure the distances between spin labels yielding distance equations that are solved using numerical algorithms to provide one or several structural predictions. In this work, the minimum number of SDSL distance measurements and distance measurement types required to predict a unique nucleic acid structure were investigated. Our results indicate that at least six distance measurements should be obtained given that the distance measurements do not connect one SDSL on one arm with more than three SDSLs on the other arm. Moreover, there may be a preference for 1-to-1 SLs distance measurements rather than 1-to-many SLs as the latter was linked to undefined structures discussed in this study. METHODS Pairs of double-helical arms of nucleic acid were simulated using the finite element software Pro/ENGINEER (PTC Inc., Boston, MA). In each simulation, a specific SDSL distance measurement plan was adopted and the resulting structure was tested for movability. Immovable structures indicate that this plan will potentially result in a unique structural prediction of the nucleic acid. All the possible plans for SDSL distance measurements were investigated either by direct measurement or by extrapolation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samer I Awad
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The Hashemite University, P.O. Box 330127, Zarqa, 13133, Jordan.
| | - Othman A Smadi
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The Hashemite University, P.O. Box 330127, Zarqa, 13133, Jordan
| | - Mohammed F Tomeh
- Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The Hashemite University, P.O. Box 330127, Zarqa, 13133, Jordan
| | - Salah M Alzghoul
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The Hashemite University, P.O. Box 330127, Zarqa, 13133, Jordan
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4
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Tieng FYF, Abdullah-Zawawi MR, Md Shahri NAA, Mohamed-Hussein ZA, Lee LH, Mutalib NSA. A Hitchhiker's guide to RNA-RNA structure and interaction prediction tools. Brief Bioinform 2023; 25:bbad421. [PMID: 38040490 PMCID: PMC10753535 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbad421] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2023] [Revised: 10/16/2023] [Accepted: 10/26/2023] [Indexed: 12/03/2023] Open
Abstract
RNA biology has risen to prominence after a remarkable discovery of diverse functions of noncoding RNA (ncRNA). Most untranslated transcripts often exert their regulatory functions into RNA-RNA complexes via base pairing with complementary sequences in other RNAs. An interplay between RNAs is essential, as it possesses various functional roles in human cells, including genetic translation, RNA splicing, editing, ribosomal RNA maturation, RNA degradation and the regulation of metabolic pathways/riboswitches. Moreover, the pervasive transcription of the human genome allows for the discovery of novel genomic functions via RNA interactome investigation. The advancement of experimental procedures has resulted in an explosion of documented data, necessitating the development of efficient and precise computational tools and algorithms. This review provides an extensive update on RNA-RNA interaction (RRI) analysis via thermodynamic- and comparative-based RNA secondary structure prediction (RSP) and RNA-RNA interaction prediction (RIP) tools and their general functions. We also highlighted the current knowledge of RRIs and the limitations of RNA interactome mapping via experimental data. Then, the gap between RSP and RIP, the importance of RNA homologues, the relationship between pseudoknots, and RNA folding thermodynamics are discussed. It is hoped that these emerging prediction tools will deepen the understanding of RNA-associated interactions in human diseases and hasten treatment processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francis Yew Fu Tieng
- UKM Medical Molecular Biology Institute (UMBI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia
| | | | - Nur Alyaa Afifah Md Shahri
- UKM Medical Molecular Biology Institute (UMBI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia
| | - Zeti-Azura Mohamed-Hussein
- Institute of Systems Biology (INBIOSIS), UKM, Selangor 43600, Malaysia
- Department of Applied Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, UKM, Selangor 43600, Malaysia
| | - Learn-Han Lee
- Sunway Microbiomics Centre, School of Medical and Life Sciences, Sunway University, Sunway City 47500, Malaysia
- Novel Bacteria and Drug Discovery Research Group, Microbiome and Bioresource Research Strength, Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University of Malaysia, Selangor 47500, Malaysia
| | - Nurul-Syakima Ab Mutalib
- UKM Medical Molecular Biology Institute (UMBI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia
- Novel Bacteria and Drug Discovery Research Group, Microbiome and Bioresource Research Strength, Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University of Malaysia, Selangor 47500, Malaysia
- Faculty of Health Sciences, UKM, Kuala Lumpur 50300, Malaysia
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5
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Zhang D, Qiao L, Lei X, Dong X, Tong Y, Wang J, Wang Z, Zhou R. Mutagenesis and structural studies reveal the basis for the specific binding of SARS-CoV-2 SL3 RNA element with human TIA1 protein. Nat Commun 2023; 14:3715. [PMID: 37349329 PMCID: PMC10287707 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39410-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/04/2022] [Accepted: 06/12/2023] [Indexed: 06/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Viral RNA-host protein interactions are indispensable during RNA virus transcription and replication, but their detailed structural and dynamical features remain largely elusive. Here, we characterize the binding interface for the SARS-CoV-2 stem-loop 3 (SL3) cis-acting element to human TIA1 protein with a combined theoretical and experimental approaches. The highly structured SARS-CoV-2 SL3 has a high binding affinity to TIA1 protein, in which the aromatic stacking, hydrogen bonds, and hydrophobic interactions collectively direct this specific binding. Further mutagenesis studies validate our proposed 3D binding model and reveal two SL3 variants have enhanced binding affinities to TIA1. And disruptions of the identified RNA-protein interactions with designed antisense oligonucleotides dramatically reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection in cells. Finally, TIA1 protein could interact with conserved SL3 RNA elements within other betacoronavirus lineages. These findings open an avenue to explore the viral RNA-host protein interactions and provide a pioneering structural basis for RNA-targeting antiviral drug design.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dong Zhang
- Institute of Quantitative Biology, College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310058, China
| | - Lulu Qiao
- State Key Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310058, China
| | - Xiaobo Lei
- NHC Key Laboratory of Systems Biology of Pathogens and Christophe Mérieux Laboratory, Institute of Pathogen Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100730, China
| | - Xiaojing Dong
- NHC Key Laboratory of Systems Biology of Pathogens and Christophe Mérieux Laboratory, Institute of Pathogen Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100730, China
| | - Yunguang Tong
- College of Life Sciences, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310018, China
- Department of Pharmacy, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310018, China
| | - Jianwei Wang
- NHC Key Laboratory of Systems Biology of Pathogens and Christophe Mérieux Laboratory, Institute of Pathogen Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100730, China.
| | - Zhiye Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310058, China.
- The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310058, China.
| | - Ruhong Zhou
- Institute of Quantitative Biology, College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310058, China.
- The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310058, China.
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6
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Khan NS, Rahaman MM, Islam S, Zhang S. RNA-NRD: a non-redundant RNA structural dataset for benchmarking and functional analysis. NAR Genom Bioinform 2023; 5:lqad040. [PMID: 37123530 PMCID: PMC10132383 DOI: 10.1093/nargab/lqad040] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2022] [Revised: 03/04/2023] [Accepted: 04/12/2023] [Indexed: 05/02/2023] Open
Abstract
The significance of RNA functions and their role in evolution and disease control have remarkably increased the research scope in the field of RNA science. Though the availability of RNA structure data in PBD has been growing tremendously, maintaining their quality and integrity has become the greater challenge. Since the data available in PDB are results of different independent research, they might contain redundancy. As a result, there remains a possibility of data bias for both protein and RNA chains. Quite a few studies have been conducted to remove the redundancy of protein structures by introducing high-quality representatives. However, the amount of research done to remove the redundancy of RNA structures is still very low. To remove RNA chain redundancy in PDB, we have introduced RNA-NRD, a non-redundant dataset of RNA chains based on sequence and 3D structural similarity. We compared RNA-NRD with the existing non-redundant RNA structure dataset RS-RNA and showed that it has better-formed clusters of redundant RNA chains with lower average RMSD and higher average PSI, thus improving the overall quality of the dataset.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nabila Shahnaz Khan
- Department of Computer Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA
| | - Md Mahfuzur Rahaman
- Department of Computer Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA
| | - Shahidul Islam
- School of Computing and Design, California State University, Monterey Bay, Seaside, CA 93955, USA
| | - Shaojie Zhang
- Department of Computer Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA
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7
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Kamga Youmbi FI, Kengne Tchendji V, Tayou Djamegni C. P-FARFAR2: A multithreaded greedy approach to sampling low-energy RNA structures in Rosetta FARFAR2. Comput Biol Chem 2023; 104:107878. [PMID: 37167861 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiolchem.2023.107878] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2022] [Revised: 04/23/2023] [Accepted: 05/01/2023] [Indexed: 05/13/2023]
Abstract
RNA (ribonucleic acid) structure prediction finds many applications in health science and drug discovery due to its importance in several life regulatory processes. But despite significant advances in the close field of protein prediction, RNA 3D structure still poses a tremendous challenge to predict, especially for large sequences. In this regard, the approach unfolded by Rosetta FARFAR2 (Fragment Assembly of RNA with Full-Atom Refinement, version 2) has shown promising results, but the algorithm is non-deterministic by nature. In this paper, we develop P-FARFAR2: a parallel enhancement of FARFAR2 that increases its ability to assemble low-energy structures via multithreaded exploration of random configurations in a greedy manner. This strategy, appearing in the literature under the term "parallel mechanism", is made viable through two measures: first, the synchronization window is coarsened to several Monte Carlo cycles; second, all but one of the threads are differentiated as auxiliary and set to perform a weakened version of the problem. Following empirical analysis on a diverse range of RNA structures, we report achieving statistical significance in lowering the energy levels of ensuing samples. And consequently, despite the moderate-to-weak correlation between energy levels and prediction accuracy, this achievement happens to propagate to accuracy measurements.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Vianney Kengne Tchendji
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Dschang, PO Box 67, Dschang, Cameroon.
| | - Clémentin Tayou Djamegni
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Dschang, PO Box 67, Dschang, Cameroon; Department of Computer Engineering, University of Dschang, PO Box 134, Bandjoun, Cameroon.
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8
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Gumna J, Antczak M, Adamiak RW, Bujnicki JM, Chen SJ, Ding F, Ghosh P, Li J, Mukherjee S, Nithin C, Pachulska-Wieczorek K, Ponce-Salvatierra A, Popenda M, Sarzynska J, Wirecki T, Zhang D, Zhang S, Zok T, Westhof E, Miao Z, Szachniuk M, Rybarczyk A. Computational Pipeline for Reference-Free Comparative Analysis of RNA 3D Structures Applied to SARS-CoV-2 UTR Models. Int J Mol Sci 2022; 23:ijms23179630. [PMID: 36077037 PMCID: PMC9455975 DOI: 10.3390/ijms23179630] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2022] [Revised: 08/17/2022] [Accepted: 08/20/2022] [Indexed: 01/19/2023] Open
Abstract
RNA is a unique biomolecule that is involved in a variety of fundamental biological functions, all of which depend solely on its structure and dynamics. Since the experimental determination of crystal RNA structures is laborious, computational 3D structure prediction methods are experiencing an ongoing and thriving development. Such methods can lead to many models; thus, it is necessary to build comparisons and extract common structural motifs for further medical or biological studies. Here, we introduce a computational pipeline dedicated to reference-free high-throughput comparative analysis of 3D RNA structures. We show its application in the RNA-Puzzles challenge, in which five participating groups attempted to predict the three-dimensional structures of 5'- and 3'-untranslated regions (UTRs) of the SARS-CoV-2 genome. We report the results of this puzzle and discuss the structural motifs obtained from the analysis. All simulated models and tools incorporated into the pipeline are open to scientific and academic use.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julita Gumna
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
| | - Maciej Antczak
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
- Institute of Computing Science, Poznan University of Technology, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
| | - Ryszard W. Adamiak
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
- Institute of Computing Science, Poznan University of Technology, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
| | - Janusz M. Bujnicki
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Shi-Jie Chen
- Department of Physics, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Data Science and Informatics, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
| | - Feng Ding
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA
| | - Pritha Ghosh
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Jun Li
- Department of Physics, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Data Science and Informatics, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
| | - Sunandan Mukherjee
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Chandran Nithin
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
- Laboratory of Computational Biology, Faculty of Chemistry, Biological and Chemical Research Centre, University of Warsaw, 02-089 Warsaw, Poland
| | | | - Almudena Ponce-Salvatierra
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Mariusz Popenda
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
| | - Joanna Sarzynska
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
| | - Tomasz Wirecki
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Dong Zhang
- Department of Physics, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Data Science and Informatics, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
| | - Sicheng Zhang
- Department of Physics, Department of Biochemistry, Institute for Data Science and Informatics, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
| | - Tomasz Zok
- Institute of Computing Science, Poznan University of Technology, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
| | - Eric Westhof
- Architecture et Réactivité de l’ARN, Université de Strasbourg, Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire du CNRS, 67084 Strasbourg, France
| | - Zhichao Miao
- Translational Research Institute of Brain and Brain-Like Intelligence, Department of Anesthesiology, Shanghai Fourth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200081, China
- Correspondence: (Z.M.); (A.R.)
| | - Marta Szachniuk
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
- Institute of Computing Science, Poznan University of Technology, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
| | - Agnieszka Rybarczyk
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
- Institute of Computing Science, Poznan University of Technology, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
- Correspondence: (Z.M.); (A.R.)
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9
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Kloczewiak M, Banks JM, Jin L, Brader ML. A Biopharmaceutical Perspective on Higher-Order Structure and Thermal Stability of mRNA Vaccines. Mol Pharm 2022; 19:2022-2031. [PMID: 35715255 PMCID: PMC9257798 DOI: 10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.2c00092] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2022] [Revised: 05/13/2022] [Accepted: 05/16/2022] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
Preservation of the integrity of macromolecular higher-order structure is a tenet central to achieving biologic drug and vaccine product stability toward manufacturing, distribution, storage, handling, and administration. Given that mRNA lipid nanoparticles (mRNA-LNPs) are held together by an intricate ensemble of weak forces, there are some intriguing parallels to biologic drugs, at least at first glance. However, mRNA vaccines are not without unique formulation and stabilization challenges derived from the instability of unmodified mRNA and its limited history as a drug or vaccine. Since certain learning gained from biologic drug development may be applicable for the improvement of mRNA vaccines, we present a perspective on parallels and contrasts between the emerging role of higher-order structure pertaining to mRNA-LNPs compared to pharmaceutical proteins. In a recent publication, the location of mRNA encapsulated within lipid nanoparticles was identified, revealing new insights into the LNP structure, nanoheterogeneity, and microenvironment of the encapsulated mRNA molecules [Brader et al. Biophys. J. 2021, 120, 2766]. We extend those findings by considering the effect of encapsulation on mRNA thermal unfolding with the observation that encapsulation in LNPs increases mRNA unfolding temperatures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marek Kloczewiak
- Moderna, Inc., 200 Technology Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Jessica M. Banks
- Moderna, Inc., 200 Technology Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Lin Jin
- Moderna, Inc., 200 Technology Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Mark L. Brader
- Moderna, Inc., 200 Technology Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
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10
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Zeke A, Schád É, Horváth T, Abukhairan R, Szabó B, Tantos A. Deep structural insights into RNA-binding disordered protein regions. WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS. RNA 2022; 13:e1714. [PMID: 35098694 PMCID: PMC9539567 DOI: 10.1002/wrna.1714] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2021] [Revised: 12/22/2021] [Accepted: 01/07/2022] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
Recent efforts to identify RNA binding proteins in various organisms and cellular contexts have yielded a large collection of proteins that are capable of RNA binding in the absence of conventional RNA recognition domains. Many of the recently identified RNA interaction motifs fall into intrinsically disordered protein regions (IDRs). While the recognition mode and specificity of globular RNA binding elements have been thoroughly investigated and described, much less is known about the way IDRs can recognize their RNA partners. Our aim was to summarize the current state of structural knowledge on the RNA binding modes of disordered protein regions and to propose a classification system based on their sequential and structural properties. Through a detailed structural analysis of the complexes that contain disordered protein regions binding to RNA, we found two major binding modes that represent different recognition strategies and, most likely, functions. We compared these examples with DNA binding disordered proteins and found key differences stemming from the nucleic acids as well as similar binding strategies, implying a broader substrate acceptance by these proteins. Due to the very limited number of known structures, we integrated molecular dynamics simulations in our study, whose results support the proposed structural preferences of specific RNA‐binding IDRs. To broaden the scope of our review, we included a brief analysis of RNA‐binding small molecules and compared their structural characteristics and RNA recognition strategies to the RNA‐binding IDRs. This article is categorized under:RNA Structure and Dynamics > RNA Structure, Dynamics, and Chemistry RNA Interactions with Proteins and Other Molecules > Protein–RNA Recognition RNA Interactions with Proteins and Other Molecules > Small Molecule–RNA Interactions
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Affiliation(s)
- András Zeke
- Institute of Enzymology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Éva Schád
- Institute of Enzymology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Tamás Horváth
- Institute of Enzymology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Rawan Abukhairan
- Institute of Enzymology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Beáta Szabó
- Institute of Enzymology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Agnes Tantos
- Institute of Enzymology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
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11
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Statistical potentials for RNA-protein interactions optimized by CMA-ES. J Mol Graph Model 2021; 110:108044. [PMID: 34736056 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmgm.2021.108044] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/23/2021] [Revised: 09/24/2021] [Accepted: 10/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
Characterizing RNA-protein interactions remains an important endeavor, complicated by the difficulty in obtaining the relevant structures. Evaluating model structures via statistical potentials is in principle straight-forward and effective. However, given the relatively small size of the existing learning set of RNA-protein complexes optimization of such potentials continues to be problematic. Notably, interaction-based statistical potentials have problems in addressing large RNA-protein complexes. In this study, we adopted a novel strategy with covariance matrix adaptation (CMA-ES) to calculate statistical potentials, successfully identifying native docking poses.
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12
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Zhang D, Chen SJ, Zhou R. Modeling Noncanonical RNA Base Pairs by a Coarse-Grained IsRNA2 Model. J Phys Chem B 2021; 125:11907-11915. [PMID: 34694128 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c07288] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Noncanonical base pairs contribute crucially to the three-dimensional architecture of large RNA molecules; however, how to accurately model them remains an open challenge in RNA 3D structure prediction. Here, we report a promising coarse-grained (CG) IsRNA2 model to predict noncanonical base pairs in large RNAs through molecular dynamics simulations. By introducing a five-bead per nucleotide CG representation to reserve the three interacting edges of nucleobases, IsRNA2 accurately models various base-pairing interactions, including both canonical and noncanonical base pairs. A benchmark test indicated that IsRNA2 achieves a comparable performance to the atomic model in de novo modeling of noncanonical RNA structures. In addition, IsRNA2 was able to refine the 3D structure predictions for large RNAs in RNA-puzzle challenges. Finally, the graphics processing unit acceleration was introduced to speed up the sampling efficiency in IsRNA2 for very large RNA molecules. Therefore, the CG IsRNA2 model reported here offers a reliable approach to predict the structures and dynamics of large RNAs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dong Zhang
- College of Life Sciences and Institute of Quantitative Biology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Shi-Jie Chen
- Department of Physics, Department of Biochemistry, and Institute of Data Science and Informatics, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, United States
| | - Ruhong Zhou
- College of Life Sciences and Institute of Quantitative Biology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
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13
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Feng Y, Yan Y, He J, Tao H, Wu Q, Huang SY. Docking and scoring for nucleic acid-ligand interactions: Principles and current status. Drug Discov Today 2021; 27:838-847. [PMID: 34718205 DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2021.10.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2021] [Revised: 09/06/2021] [Accepted: 10/20/2021] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
Nucleic acid (NA)-ligand interactions have crucial roles in many cellular processes and, thus, are increasingly attracting therapeutic interest in drug discovery. Molecular docking is a valuable tool for studying molecular interactions. However, because NAs differ significantly from proteins in both their physical and chemical properties, traditional docking algorithms and scoring functions for protein-ligand interactions might not be applicable to NA-ligand docking. Therefore, various sampling strategies and scoring functions for NA-ligand interactions have been developed. Here, we review the basic principles and current status of docking algorithms and scoring functions for DNA/RNA-ligand interactions. We also discuss challenges and limitations of current docking and scoring approaches.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuyu Feng
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, PR China
| | - Yumeng Yan
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, PR China
| | - Jiahua He
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, PR China
| | - Huanyu Tao
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, PR China
| | - Qilong Wu
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, PR China
| | - Sheng-You Huang
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, PR China.
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14
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Huang L, Liao X, Li M, Wang J, Peng X, Wilson TJ, Lilley DMJ. Structure and folding of four putative kink turns identified in structured RNA species in a test of structural prediction rules. Nucleic Acids Res 2021; 49:5916-5924. [PMID: 33978763 PMCID: PMC8191799 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkab333] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2021] [Revised: 04/13/2021] [Accepted: 05/09/2021] [Indexed: 01/25/2023] Open
Abstract
k-Turns are widespread key architectural elements that occur in many classes of RNA molecules. We have shown previously that their folding properties (whether or not they fold into their tightly kinked structure on addition of metal ions) and conformation depend on their local sequence, and we have elucidated a series of rules for prediction of these properties from sequence. In this work, we have expanded the rules for prediction of folding properties, and then applied the full set to predict the folding and conformation of four probable k-turns we have identified amongst 224 structured RNA species found in bacterial intergenenic regions by the Breaker lab (1). We have analyzed the ion-dependence of folding of the four k-turns using fluorescence resonance energy transfer, and determined the conformation of two of them using X-ray crystallography. We find that the experimental data fully conform to both the predicted folding and conformational properties. We conclude that our folding rules are robust, and can be applied to new k-turns of unknown characteristics with confidence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lin Huang
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Malignant Tumor Epigenetics and Gene Regulation, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510120, PR China
- Cancer Research UK Nucleic Acid Structure Research Group, MSI/WTB Complex, The University of Dundee, Dow Street, Dundee DD1 5EH, UK
| | - Xinli Liao
- Department of Chemistry, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, PR China
| | - Mengxiao Li
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Malignant Tumor Epigenetics and Gene Regulation, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510120, PR China
| | - Jia Wang
- Cancer Research UK Nucleic Acid Structure Research Group, MSI/WTB Complex, The University of Dundee, Dow Street, Dundee DD1 5EH, UK
| | - Xuemei Peng
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Malignant Tumor Epigenetics and Gene Regulation, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510120, PR China
| | - Timothy J Wilson
- Cancer Research UK Nucleic Acid Structure Research Group, MSI/WTB Complex, The University of Dundee, Dow Street, Dundee DD1 5EH, UK
| | - David M J Lilley
- Cancer Research UK Nucleic Acid Structure Research Group, MSI/WTB Complex, The University of Dundee, Dow Street, Dundee DD1 5EH, UK
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15
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Zhang D, Li J, Chen SJ. IsRNA1: De Novo Prediction and Blind Screening of RNA 3D Structures. J Chem Theory Comput 2021; 17:1842-1857. [PMID: 33560836 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.0c01148] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Modeling structures and functions of large ribonucleic acid (RNAs) especially with complicated topologies is highly challenging due to the inefficiency of large conformational sampling and the presence of complicated tertiary interactions. To address this problem, one highly promising approach is coarse-grained modeling. Here, following an iterative simulated reference state approach to decipher the correlations between different structural parameters, we developed a potent coarse-grained RNA model named as IsRNA1 for RNA studies. Molecular dynamics simulations in the IsRNA1 can predict the native structures of small RNAs from a sequence and fold medium-sized RNAs into near-native tertiary structures with the assistance of secondary structure constraints. A large-scale benchmark test on RNA 3D structure prediction shows that IsRNA1 exhibits improved performance for relatively large RNAs of complicated topologies, such as large stem-loop structures and structures containing long-range tertiary interactions. The advantages of IsRNA1 include the consideration of the correlations between the different structural variables, the appropriate characterization of canonical base-pairing and base-stacking interactions, and the better sampling for the backbone conformations. Moreover, a blind screening protocol was developed based on IsRNA1 to identify good structural models from a pool of candidates without prior knowledge of the native structures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dong Zhang
- Department of Physics, Department of Biochemistry, and Institute of Data Science and Informatics, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, United States
| | - Jun Li
- Department of Physics, Department of Biochemistry, and Institute of Data Science and Informatics, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, United States
| | - Shi-Jie Chen
- Department of Physics, Department of Biochemistry, and Institute of Data Science and Informatics, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211, United States
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16
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Li B, Cao Y, Westhof E, Miao Z. Advances in RNA 3D Structure Modeling Using Experimental Data. Front Genet 2020; 11:574485. [PMID: 33193680 PMCID: PMC7649352 DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2020.574485] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/19/2020] [Accepted: 09/02/2020] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
RNA is a unique bio-macromolecule that can both record genetic information and perform biological functions in a variety of molecular processes, including transcription, splicing, translation, and even regulating protein function. RNAs adopt specific three-dimensional conformations to enable their functions. Experimental determination of high-resolution RNA structures using x-ray crystallography is both laborious and demands expertise, thus, hindering our comprehension of RNA structural biology. The computational modeling of RNA structure was a milestone in the birth of bioinformatics. Although computational modeling has been greatly improved over the last decade showing many successful cases, the accuracy of such computational modeling is not only length-dependent but also varies according to the complexity of the structure. To increase credibility, various experimental data were integrated into computational modeling. In this review, we summarize the experiments that can be integrated into RNA structure modeling as well as the computational methods based on these experimental data. We also demonstrate how computational modeling can help the experimental determination of RNA structure. We highlight the recent advances in computational modeling which can offer reliable structure models using high-throughput experimental data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bing Li
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
| | - Yang Cao
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
| | - Eric Westhof
- Architecture et Réactivité de l’ARN, Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire du CNRS, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
| | - Zhichao Miao
- Translational Research Institute of Brain and Brain-Like Intelligence, Department of Anesthesiology, Shanghai Fourth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
- Newcastle Fibrosis Research Group, Institute of Cellular Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Cambridge, United Kingdom
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17
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3dRNA: Building RNA 3D structure with improved template library. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 2020; 18:2416-2423. [PMID: 33005304 PMCID: PMC7508704 DOI: 10.1016/j.csbj.2020.08.017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/06/2020] [Revised: 08/18/2020] [Accepted: 08/21/2020] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Most of computational methods of building RNA tertiary structure are template-based. The template-based methods usually can give more accurate 3D structures due to the use of native 3D templates, but they cannot work if the 3D templates are not available. So, a more complete library of the native 3D templates is very important for this type of methods. 3dRNA is a template-based method for building RNA tertiary structure previously proposed by us. In this paper we report improved 3D template libraries of 3dRNA by using two different schemes that give two libraries 3dRNA_Lib1 and 3dRNA_Lib2. These libraries expand the original one by nearly ten times. Benchmark shows that they can significantly increase the accuracy of 3dRNA, especially in building complex and large RNA 3D structures.
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18
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He J, Wang J, Tao H, Xiao Y, Huang SY. HNADOCK: a nucleic acid docking server for modeling RNA/DNA-RNA/DNA 3D complex structures. Nucleic Acids Res 2020; 47:W35-W42. [PMID: 31114906 PMCID: PMC6602492 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkz412] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/26/2019] [Revised: 04/25/2019] [Accepted: 05/03/2019] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Interactions between nuclide acids (RNA/DNA) play important roles in many basic cellular activities like transcription regulation, RNA processing, and protein synthesis. Therefore, determining the complex structures between RNAs/DNAs is crucial to understand the molecular mechanism of related RNA/DNA-RNA/DNA interactions. Here, we have presented HNADOCK, a user-friendly web server for nucleic acid (NA)-nucleic acid docking to model the 3D complex structures between two RNAs/DNAs, where both sequence and structure inputs are accepted for RNAs, while only structure inputs are supported for DNAs. HNADOCK server was tested through both unbound structure and sequence inputs on the benchmark of 60 RNA-RNA complexes and compared with the state-of-the-art algorithm SimRNA. For structure input, HNADOCK server achieved a high success rate of 71.7% for top 10 predictions, compared to 58.3% for SimRNA. For sequence input, HNADOCK server also obtained a satisfactory performance and gave a success rate of 83.3% when the bound RNA templates are included or 53.3% when excluding those bound RNA templates. It was also found that inclusion of the inter-RNA base-pairing information from RNA-RNA interaction prediction can significantly improve the docking accuracy, especially for the top prediction. HNADOCK is fast and can normally finish a job in about 10 minutes. The HNADOCK web server is available at http://huanglab.phys.hust.edu.cn/hnadock/.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiahua He
- Institute of Biophysics, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, P.R. China
| | - Jun Wang
- Institute of Biophysics, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, P.R. China
| | - Huanyu Tao
- Institute of Biophysics, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, P.R. China
| | - Yi Xiao
- Institute of Biophysics, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, P.R. China
| | - Sheng-You Huang
- Institute of Biophysics, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, P.R. China
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19
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Magnus M, Antczak M, Zok T, Wiedemann J, Lukasiak P, Cao Y, Bujnicki JM, Westhof E, Szachniuk M, Miao Z. RNA-Puzzles toolkit: a computational resource of RNA 3D structure benchmark datasets, structure manipulation, and evaluation tools. Nucleic Acids Res 2020; 48:576-588. [PMID: 31799609 PMCID: PMC7145511 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkz1108] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2019] [Revised: 11/06/2019] [Accepted: 11/15/2019] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Significant improvements have been made in the efficiency and accuracy of RNA 3D structure prediction methods during the succeeding challenges of RNA-Puzzles, a community-wide effort on the assessment of blind prediction of RNA tertiary structures. The RNA-Puzzles contest has shown, among others, that the development and validation of computational methods for RNA fold prediction strongly depend on the benchmark datasets and the structure comparison algorithms. Yet, there has been no systematic benchmark set or decoy structures available for the 3D structure prediction of RNA, hindering the standardization of comparative tests in the modeling of RNA structure. Furthermore, there has not been a unified set of tools that allows deep and complete RNA structure analysis, and at the same time, that is easy to use. Here, we present RNA-Puzzles toolkit, a computational resource including (i) decoy sets generated by different RNA 3D structure prediction methods (raw, for-evaluation and standardized datasets), (ii) 3D structure normalization, analysis, manipulation, visualization tools (RNA_format, RNA_normalizer, rna-tools) and (iii) 3D structure comparison metric tools (RNAQUA, MCQ4Structures). This resource provides a full list of computational tools as well as a standard RNA 3D structure prediction assessment protocol for the community.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marcin Magnus
- International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
- ReMedy-International Research Agenda Unit, Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw, 02-097 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Maciej Antczak
- Institute of Computing Science & European Centre for Bioinformatics and Genomics, Poznan University of Technology, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
| | - Tomasz Zok
- Institute of Computing Science & European Centre for Bioinformatics and Genomics, Poznan University of Technology, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
| | - Jakub Wiedemann
- Institute of Computing Science & European Centre for Bioinformatics and Genomics, Poznan University of Technology, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
| | - Piotr Lukasiak
- Institute of Computing Science & European Centre for Bioinformatics and Genomics, Poznan University of Technology, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
| | - Yang Cao
- Center of Growth, Metabolism and Aging, Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, PR China
| | - Janusz M Bujnicki
- International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
- Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland
| | - Eric Westhof
- Architecture et Réactivité de l’ARN, Université de Strasbourg, Institut de biologie moléculaire et cellulaire du CNRS, 12 allée Konrad Roentgen, 67084 Strasbourg, France
| | - Marta Szachniuk
- Institute of Computing Science & European Centre for Bioinformatics and Genomics, Poznan University of Technology, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
| | - Zhichao Miao
- Translational Research Institute of Brain and Brain-Like Intelligence and Department of Anesthesiology, Shanghai Fourth People's Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200081, China
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Wellcome Genome Campus, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK
- Newcastle Fibrosis Research Group, Institute of Cellular Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
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20
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Yan Y, Wen Z, Zhang D, Huang SY. Determination of an effective scoring function for RNA-RNA interactions with a physics-based double-iterative method. Nucleic Acids Res 2019; 46:e56. [PMID: 29506237 PMCID: PMC5961370 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gky113] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/22/2017] [Accepted: 02/08/2018] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
RNA–RNA interactions play fundamental roles in gene and cell regulation. Therefore, accurate prediction of RNA–RNA interactions is critical to determine their complex structures and understand the molecular mechanism of the interactions. Here, we have developed a physics-based double-iterative strategy to determine the effective potentials for RNA–RNA interactions based on a training set of 97 diverse RNA–RNA complexes. The double-iterative strategy circumvented the reference state problem in knowledge-based scoring functions by updating the potentials through iteration and also overcame the decoy-dependent limitation in previous iterative methods by constructing the decoys iteratively. The derived scoring function, which is referred to as DITScoreRR, was evaluated on an RNA–RNA docking benchmark of 60 test cases and compared with three other scoring functions. It was shown that for bound docking, our scoring function DITScoreRR obtained the excellent success rates of 90% and 98.3% in binding mode predictions when the top 1 and 10 predictions were considered, compared to 63.3% and 71.7% for van der Waals interactions, 45.0% and 65.0% for ITScorePP, and 11.7% and 26.7% for ZDOCK 2.1, respectively. For unbound docking, DITScoreRR achieved the good success rates of 53.3% and 71.7% in binding mode predictions when the top 1 and 10 predictions were considered, compared to 13.3% and 28.3% for van der Waals interactions, 11.7% and 26.7% for our ITScorePP, and 3.3% and 6.7% for ZDOCK 2.1, respectively. DITScoreRR also performed significantly better in ranking decoys and obtained significantly higher score-RMSD correlations than the other three scoring functions. DITScoreRR will be of great value for the prediction and design of RNA structures and RNA–RNA complexes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yumeng Yan
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, P.R. China
| | - Zeyu Wen
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, P.R. China
| | - Di Zhang
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, P.R. China
| | - Sheng-You Huang
- School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, P.R. China
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21
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RNApolis: Computational Platform for RNA Structure Analysis. FOUNDATIONS OF COMPUTING AND DECISION SCIENCES 2019. [DOI: 10.2478/fcds-2019-0012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Abstract
In the 1970s, computer scientists began to engage in research in the field of structural biology. The first structural databases, as well as models and methods supporting the analysis of biomolecule structures, started to be created. RNA was put at the centre of scientific interest quite late. However, more and more methods dedicated to this molecule are currently being developed. This paper presents RNApolis - a new computing platform, which offers access to seven bioinformatic tools developed to support the RNA structure study. The set of tools include a structural database and systems for predicting, modelling, annotating and evaluating the RNA structure. RNApolis supports research at different structural levels and allows the discovery, establishment, and validation of relationships between the primary, secondary and tertiary structure of RNAs. The platform is freely available at http://rnapolis.pl
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22
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Ponce-Salvatierra A, Astha, Merdas K, Nithin C, Ghosh P, Mukherjee S, Bujnicki JM. Computational modeling of RNA 3D structure based on experimental data. Biosci Rep 2019; 39:BSR20180430. [PMID: 30670629 PMCID: PMC6367127 DOI: 10.1042/bsr20180430] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2018] [Revised: 01/19/2019] [Accepted: 01/21/2019] [Indexed: 01/02/2023] Open
Abstract
RNA molecules are master regulators of cells. They are involved in a variety of molecular processes: they transmit genetic information, sense cellular signals and communicate responses, and even catalyze chemical reactions. As in the case of proteins, RNA function is dictated by its structure and by its ability to adopt different conformations, which in turn is encoded in the sequence. Experimental determination of high-resolution RNA structures is both laborious and difficult, and therefore the majority of known RNAs remain structurally uncharacterized. To address this problem, predictive computational methods were developed based on the accumulated knowledge of RNA structures determined so far, the physical basis of the RNA folding, and taking into account evolutionary considerations, such as conservation of functionally important motifs. However, all theoretical methods suffer from various limitations, and they are generally unable to accurately predict structures for RNA sequences longer than 100-nt residues unless aided by additional experimental data. In this article, we review experimental methods that can generate data usable by computational methods, as well as computational approaches for RNA structure prediction that can utilize data from experimental analyses. We outline methods and data types that can be potentially useful for RNA 3D structure modeling but are not commonly used by the existing software, suggesting directions for future development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Almudena Ponce-Salvatierra
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, Warsaw PL-02-109, Poland
| | - Astha
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, Warsaw PL-02-109, Poland
| | - Katarzyna Merdas
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, Warsaw PL-02-109, Poland
| | - Chandran Nithin
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, Warsaw PL-02-109, Poland
| | - Pritha Ghosh
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, Warsaw PL-02-109, Poland
| | - Sunandan Mukherjee
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, Warsaw PL-02-109, Poland
| | - Janusz M Bujnicki
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, Warsaw PL-02-109, Poland
- Bioinformatics Laboratory, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, ul. Umultowska 89, Poznan PL-61-614, Poland
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23
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Bottaro S, Bussi G, Pinamonti G, Reißer S, Boomsma W, Lindorff-Larsen K. Barnaba: software for analysis of nucleic acid structures and trajectories. RNA (NEW YORK, N.Y.) 2019; 25:219-231. [PMID: 30420522 PMCID: PMC6348988 DOI: 10.1261/rna.067678.118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/26/2018] [Accepted: 11/06/2018] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
RNA molecules are highly dynamic systems characterized by a complex interplay between sequence, structure, dynamics, and function. Molecular simulations can potentially provide powerful insights into the nature of these relationships. The analysis of structures and molecular trajectories of nucleic acids can be nontrivial because it requires processing very high-dimensional data that are not easy to visualize and interpret. Here we introduce Barnaba, a Python library aimed at facilitating the analysis of nucleic acid structures and molecular simulations. The software consists of a variety of analysis tools that allow the user to (i) calculate distances between three-dimensional structures using different metrics, (ii) back-calculate experimental data from three-dimensional structures, (iii) perform cluster analysis and dimensionality reductions, (iv) search three-dimensional motifs in PDB structures and trajectories, and (v) construct elastic network models for nucleic acids and nucleic acids-protein complexes. In addition, Barnaba makes it possible to calculate torsion angles, pucker conformations, and to detect base-pairing/base-stacking interactions. Barnaba produces graphics that conveniently visualize both extended secondary structure and dynamics for a set of molecular conformations. The software is available as a command-line tool as well as a library, and supports a variety of file formats such as PDB, dcd, and xtc files. Source code, documentation, and examples are freely available at https://github.com/srnas/barnaba under GNU GPLv3 license.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sandro Bottaro
- Structural Biology and NMR Laboratory and Linderstrøm-Lang Centre for Protein Science, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen 2200, Denmark
- International School for Advanced Studies, 34136 Trieste, Italy
| | - Giovanni Bussi
- International School for Advanced Studies, 34136 Trieste, Italy
| | - Giovanni Pinamonti
- International School for Advanced Studies, 34136 Trieste, Italy
- Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität, 14195 Berlin, Germany
| | - Sabine Reißer
- International School for Advanced Studies, 34136 Trieste, Italy
| | - Wouter Boomsma
- Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen 2200, Denmark
| | - Kresten Lindorff-Larsen
- Structural Biology and NMR Laboratory and Linderstrøm-Lang Centre for Protein Science, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen 2200, Denmark
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24
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Kappel K, Liu S, Larsen KP, Skiniotis G, Puglisi EV, Puglisi JD, Zhou ZH, Zhao R, Das R. De novo computational RNA modeling into cryo-EM maps of large ribonucleoprotein complexes. Nat Methods 2018; 15:947-954. [PMID: 30377372 PMCID: PMC6636682 DOI: 10.1038/s41592-018-0172-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2018] [Accepted: 07/31/2018] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
Increasingly, cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is used to determine the structures of RNA-protein assemblies, but nearly all maps determined with this method have biologically important regions where the local resolution does not permit RNA coordinate tracing. To address these omissions, we present de novo ribonucleoprotein modeling in real space through assembly of fragments together with experimental density in Rosetta (DRRAFTER). We show that DRRAFTER recovers near-native models for a diverse benchmark set of RNA-protein complexes including the spliceosome, mitochondrial ribosome, and CRISPR-Cas9-sgRNA complexes; rigorous blind tests include yeast U1 snRNP and spliceosomal P complex maps. Additionally, to aid in model interpretation, we present a method for reliable in situ estimation of DRRAFTER model accuracy. Finally, we apply DRRAFTER to recently determined maps of telomerase, the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase initiation complex, and the packaged MS2 genome, demonstrating the acceleration of accurate model building in challenging cases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kalli Kappel
- Biophysics Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Shiheng Liu
- Electron Imaging Center for Nanomachines, California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Kevin P Larsen
- Biophysics Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
- Department of Structural Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Georgios Skiniotis
- Department of Structural Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
- Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
| | | | - Joseph D Puglisi
- Department of Structural Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Z Hong Zhou
- Electron Imaging Center for Nanomachines, California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Rui Zhao
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA
| | - Rhiju Das
- Biophysics Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
- Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
- Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
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25
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Krüger DM, Neubacher S, Grossmann TN. Protein-RNA interactions: structural characteristics and hotspot amino acids. RNA (NEW YORK, N.Y.) 2018; 24:1457-1465. [PMID: 30093489 PMCID: PMC6191724 DOI: 10.1261/rna.066464.118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/20/2018] [Accepted: 08/06/2018] [Indexed: 06/01/2023]
Abstract
Structural information about protein-RNA complexes supports the understanding of crucial recognition processes in the cell, and it can allow the development of high affinity ligands to interfere with these processes. In this respect, the identification of amino acid hotspots is particularly important. In contrast to protein-protein interactions, in silico approaches for protein-RNA interactions lag behind in their development. Herein, we report an analysis of available protein-RNA structures. We assembled a data set of 322 crystal and NMR structures and analyzed them regarding interface properties. In addition, we describe a computational alanine-scanning approach which provides interaction scores for interface amino acids, allowing the identification of potential hotspots in protein-RNA interfaces. We have made the computational approach available as an online tool, which allows interaction scores to be calculated for any structure of a protein-RNA complex by uploading atomic coordinates to the PRI HotScore web server (https://pri-hotscore.labs.vu.nl).
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Affiliation(s)
- Dennis M Krüger
- Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society, 44227 Dortmund, Germany
| | - Saskia Neubacher
- Department of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Tom N Grossmann
- Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society, 44227 Dortmund, Germany
- Department of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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26
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Chen F, Sun H, Wang J, Zhu F, Liu H, Wang Z, Lei T, Li Y, Hou T. Assessing the performance of MM/PBSA and MM/GBSA methods. 8. Predicting binding free energies and poses of protein-RNA complexes. RNA (NEW YORK, N.Y.) 2018; 24:1183-1194. [PMID: 29930024 PMCID: PMC6097651 DOI: 10.1261/rna.065896.118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 67] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2018] [Accepted: 06/13/2018] [Indexed: 05/10/2023]
Abstract
Molecular docking provides a computationally efficient way to predict the atomic structural details of protein-RNA interactions (PRI), but accurate prediction of the three-dimensional structures and binding affinities for PRI is still notoriously difficult, partly due to the unreliability of the existing scoring functions for PRI. MM/PBSA and MM/GBSA are more theoretically rigorous than most scoring functions for protein-RNA docking, but their prediction performance for protein-RNA systems remains unclear. Here, we systemically evaluated the capability of MM/PBSA and MM/GBSA to predict the binding affinities and recognize the near-native binding structures for protein-RNA systems with different solvent models and interior dielectric constants (εin). For predicting the binding affinities, the predictions given by MM/GBSA based on the minimized structures in explicit solvent and the GBGBn1 model with εin = 2 yielded the highest correlation with the experimental data. Moreover, the MM/GBSA calculations based on the minimized structures in implicit solvent and the GBGBn1 model distinguished the near-native binding structures within the top 10 decoys for 117 out of the 148 protein-RNA systems (79.1%). This performance is better than all docking scoring functions studied here. Therefore, the MM/GBSA rescoring is an efficient way to improve the prediction capability of scoring functions for protein-RNA systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fu Chen
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China
- State Key Lab of CAD&CG, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China
- College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China
| | - Huiyong Sun
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China
| | - Junmei Wang
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, USA
| | - Feng Zhu
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China
| | - Hui Liu
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China
| | - Zhe Wang
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China
- State Key Lab of CAD&CG, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China
| | - Tailong Lei
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China
| | - Youyong Li
- Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215123, China
| | - Tingjun Hou
- College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China
- State Key Lab of CAD&CG, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China
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27
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Nithin C, Ghosh P, Bujnicki JM. Bioinformatics Tools and Benchmarks for Computational Docking and 3D Structure Prediction of RNA-Protein Complexes. Genes (Basel) 2018; 9:genes9090432. [PMID: 30149645 PMCID: PMC6162694 DOI: 10.3390/genes9090432] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/14/2018] [Revised: 07/26/2018] [Accepted: 08/21/2018] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
RNA-protein (RNP) interactions play essential roles in many biological processes, such as regulation of co-transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene expression, RNA splicing, transport, storage and stabilization, as well as protein synthesis. An increasing number of RNP structures would aid in a better understanding of these processes. However, due to the technical difficulties associated with experimental determination of macromolecular structures by high-resolution methods, studies on RNP recognition and complex formation present significant challenges. As an alternative, computational prediction of RNP interactions can be carried out. Structural models obtained by theoretical predictive methods are, in general, less reliable compared to models based on experimental measurements but they can be sufficiently accurate to be used as a basis for to formulating functional hypotheses. In this article, we present an overview of computational methods for 3D structure prediction of RNP complexes. We discuss currently available methods for macromolecular docking and for scoring 3D structural models of RNP complexes in particular. Additionally, we also review benchmarks that have been developed to assess the accuracy of these methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chandran Nithin
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, PL-02-109 Warsaw, Poland.
| | - Pritha Ghosh
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, PL-02-109 Warsaw, Poland.
| | - Janusz M Bujnicki
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, PL-02-109 Warsaw, Poland.
- Bioinformatics Laboratory, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, ul. Umultowska 89, PL-61-614 Poznan, Poland.
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28
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Sieradzan AK, Golon Ł, Liwo A. Prediction of DNA and RNA structure with the NARES-2P force field and conformational space annealing. Phys Chem Chem Phys 2018; 20:19656-19663. [PMID: 30014063 DOI: 10.1039/c8cp03018a] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
A physics-based method for the prediction of the structures of nucleic acids, which is based on the physics-based 2-bead NARES-2P model of polynucleotides and global-optimization Conformational Space Annealing (CSA) algorithm has been proposed. The target structure is sought as the global-energy-minimum structure, which ignores the entropy component of the free energy but spares expensive multicanonical simulations necessary to find the conformational ensemble with the lowest free energy. The CSA algorithm has been modified to optimize its performance when treating both single and multi-chain nucleic acids. It was shown that the method finds the native fold for simple RNA molecules and DNA duplexes and with limited distance restraints, which can easily be obtained from the secondary-structure-prediction servers, complex RNA folds can be treated with using moderate computer resources.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam K Sieradzan
- Faculty of Chemistry, University of Gdańsk, 80-308 Gdańsk, Poland.
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29
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Héliou A, Budday D, Fonseca R, van den Bedem H. Fast, clash-free RNA conformational morphing using molecular junctions. Bioinformatics 2018; 33:2114-2122. [PMID: 28334257 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btx127] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2016] [Accepted: 03/11/2017] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Motivation Non-coding ribonucleic acids (ncRNA) are functional RNA molecules that are not translated into protein. They are extremely dynamic, adopting diverse conformational substates, which enables them to modulate their interaction with a large number of other molecules. The flexibility of ncRNA provides a challenge for probing their complex 3D conformational landscape, both experimentally and computationally. Results Despite their conformational diversity, ncRNAs mostly preserve their secondary structure throughout the dynamic ensemble. Here we present a kinematics-based procedure to morph an RNA molecule between conformational substates, while avoiding inter-atomic clashes. We represent an RNA as a kinematic linkage, with fixed groups of atoms as rigid bodies and rotatable bonds as degrees of freedom. Our procedure maintains RNA secondary structure by treating hydrogen bonds between base pairs as constraints. The constraints define a lower-dimensional, secondary-structure constraint manifold in conformation space, where motions are largely governed by molecular junctions of unpaired nucleotides. On a large benchmark set, we show that our morphing procedure compares favorably to peer algorithms, and can approach goal conformations to within a low all-atom RMSD by directing fewer than 1% of its atoms. Our results suggest that molecular junctions can modulate 3D structural rearrangements, while secondary structure elements guide large parts of the molecule along the transition to the correct final conformation. Availability and Implementation The source code, binaries and data are available at https://simtk.org/home/kgs . Contact amelie.heliou@polytechnique.edu or vdbedem@stanford.edu. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amélie Héliou
- LIX, Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS, Inria, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau, France
| | - Dominik Budday
- Chair of Applied Dynamics, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
| | - Rasmus Fonseca
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.,Biosciences Division, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, Menlo Park, CA, USA
| | - Henry van den Bedem
- Biosciences Division, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, Menlo Park, CA, USA
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30
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Sherman M, Contreras L. Computational approaches in design of nucleic acid-based therapeutics. Curr Opin Biotechnol 2018; 53:232-239. [PMID: 29562215 DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2017.12.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2017] [Revised: 11/29/2017] [Accepted: 12/01/2017] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
Recent advances in computational and experimental methods have led to novel avenues for therapeutic development. Utilization of nucleic acids as therapeutic agents and/or targets has been recently gaining attention due to their potential as high-affinity, selective molecular building blocks for various therapies. Notably, development of computational algorithms for predicting accessible RNA binding sites, identifying therapeutic target sequences, modeling delivery into tissues, and designing binding aptamers have enhanced therapeutic potential for this new drug category. Here, we review trends in drug development within the pharmaceutical industry and ways by which nucleic acid-based drugs have arisen as effective therapeutic candidates. In particular, we focus on computational and experimental approaches to nucleic acid-based drug design, commenting on challenges and outlooks for future applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark Sherman
- Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Program, University of Texas at Austin, 100 E. 24th Street, A6500, Austin, TX 78712, USA
| | - Lydia Contreras
- McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 200 E. Dean Keeton St., Stop C0400, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
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31
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Lim CS, Brown CM. Know Your Enemy: Successful Bioinformatic Approaches to Predict Functional RNA Structures in Viral RNAs. Front Microbiol 2018; 8:2582. [PMID: 29354101 PMCID: PMC5758548 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.02582] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/09/2017] [Accepted: 12/11/2017] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Structured RNA elements may control virus replication, transcription and translation, and their distinct features are being exploited by novel antiviral strategies. Viral RNA elements continue to be discovered using combinations of experimental and computational analyses. However, the wealth of sequence data, notably from deep viral RNA sequencing, viromes, and metagenomes, necessitates computational approaches being used as an essential discovery tool. In this review, we describe practical approaches being used to discover functional RNA elements in viral genomes. In addition to success stories in new and emerging viruses, these approaches have revealed some surprising new features of well-studied viruses e.g., human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis C virus, influenza, and dengue viruses. Some notable discoveries were facilitated by new comparative analyses of diverse viral genome alignments. Importantly, comparative approaches for finding RNA elements embedded in coding and non-coding regions differ. With the exponential growth of computer power we have progressed from stem-loop prediction on single sequences to cutting edge 3D prediction, and from command line to user friendly web interfaces. Despite these advances, many powerful, user friendly prediction tools and resources are underutilized by the virology community.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chun Shen Lim
- Department of Biochemistry, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
| | - Chris M Brown
- Department of Biochemistry, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
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32
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Wang J, Mao K, Zhao Y, Zeng C, Xiang J, Zhang Y, Xiao Y. Optimization of RNA 3D structure prediction using evolutionary restraints of nucleotide-nucleotide interactions from direct coupling analysis. Nucleic Acids Res 2017; 45:6299-6309. [PMID: 28482022 PMCID: PMC5499770 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkx386] [Citation(s) in RCA: 71] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2016] [Accepted: 04/27/2017] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Direct coupling analysis of nucleotide coevolution provides a novel approach to identify which nucleotides in an RNA molecule are likely in direct contact, and this information obtained from sequence only can be used to predict RNA 3D structures with much improved accuracy. Here we present an efficient method that incorporates this information into current RNA 3D structure prediction methods, specifically 3dRNA. Our method makes much more accurate RNA 3D structure prediction than the original 3dRNA as well as other existing prediction methods that used the direct coupling analysis. In particular our method demonstrates a significant improvement in predicting multi-branch junction conformations, a major bottleneck for RNA 3D structure prediction. We also show that our method can be used to optimize the predictions by other methods. These results indicate that optimization of RNA 3D structure prediction using evolutionary restraints of nucleotide-nucleotide interactions from direct coupling analysis offers an efficient way for accurate RNA tertiary structure predictions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jian Wang
- Institute of Biophysics, School of Physics and Key Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics of the Ministry of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
| | - Kangkun Mao
- Institute of Biophysics, School of Physics and Key Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics of the Ministry of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
| | - Yunjie Zhao
- Institute of Biophysics and Department of Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
| | - Chen Zeng
- Department of Physics, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA.,School of Life Sciences, Jianghan University, Wuhan 430056, China
| | - Jianjin Xiang
- Institute of Biophysics, School of Physics and Key Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics of the Ministry of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
| | - Yi Zhang
- Institute of Biophysics, School of Physics and Key Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics of the Ministry of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
| | - Yi Xiao
- Institute of Biophysics, School of Physics and Key Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics of the Ministry of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
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33
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Abstract
In addition to continuous rapid progress in RNA structure determination, probing, and biophysical studies, the past decade has seen remarkable advances in the development of a new generation of RNA folding theories and models. In this article, we review RNA structure prediction models and models for ion-RNA and ligand-RNA interactions. These new models are becoming increasingly important for a mechanistic understanding of RNA function and quantitative design of RNA nanotechnology. We focus on new methods for physics-based, knowledge-based, and experimental data-directed modeling for RNA structures and explore the new theories for the predictions of metal ion and ligand binding sites and metal ion-dependent RNA stabilities. The integration of these new methods with theories about the cellular environment effects in RNA folding, such as molecular crowding and cotranscriptional kinetic effects, may ultimately lead to an all-encompassing RNA folding model.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li-Zhen Sun
- Department of Physics, Department of Biochemistry, and MU Informatics Institute, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211;
| | - Dong Zhang
- Department of Physics, Department of Biochemistry, and MU Informatics Institute, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211;
| | - Shi-Jie Chen
- Department of Physics, Department of Biochemistry, and MU Informatics Institute, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri 65211;
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34
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Miao Z, Adamiak RW, Antczak M, Batey RT, Becka AJ, Biesiada M, Boniecki MJ, Bujnicki JM, Chen SJ, Cheng CY, Chou FC, Ferré-D'Amaré AR, Das R, Dawson WK, Ding F, Dokholyan NV, Dunin-Horkawicz S, Geniesse C, Kappel K, Kladwang W, Krokhotin A, Łach GE, Major F, Mann TH, Magnus M, Pachulska-Wieczorek K, Patel DJ, Piccirilli JA, Popenda M, Purzycka KJ, Ren A, Rice GM, Santalucia J, Sarzynska J, Szachniuk M, Tandon A, Trausch JJ, Tian S, Wang J, Weeks KM, Williams B, Xiao Y, Xu X, Zhang D, Zok T, Westhof E. RNA-Puzzles Round III: 3D RNA structure prediction of five riboswitches and one ribozyme. RNA (NEW YORK, N.Y.) 2017; 23:655-672. [PMID: 28138060 PMCID: PMC5393176 DOI: 10.1261/rna.060368.116] [Citation(s) in RCA: 132] [Impact Index Per Article: 18.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/11/2016] [Accepted: 01/26/2017] [Indexed: 05/21/2023]
Abstract
RNA-Puzzles is a collective experiment in blind 3D RNA structure prediction. We report here a third round of RNA-Puzzles. Five puzzles, 4, 8, 12, 13, 14, all structures of riboswitch aptamers and puzzle 7, a ribozyme structure, are included in this round of the experiment. The riboswitch structures include biological binding sites for small molecules (S-adenosyl methionine, cyclic diadenosine monophosphate, 5-amino 4-imidazole carboxamide riboside 5'-triphosphate, glutamine) and proteins (YbxF), and one set describes large conformational changes between ligand-free and ligand-bound states. The Varkud satellite ribozyme is the most recently solved structure of a known large ribozyme. All puzzles have established biological functions and require structural understanding to appreciate their molecular mechanisms. Through the use of fast-track experimental data, including multidimensional chemical mapping, and accurate prediction of RNA secondary structure, a large portion of the contacts in 3D have been predicted correctly leading to similar topologies for the top ranking predictions. Template-based and homology-derived predictions could predict structures to particularly high accuracies. However, achieving biological insights from de novo prediction of RNA 3D structures still depends on the size and complexity of the RNA. Blind computational predictions of RNA structures already appear to provide useful structural information in many cases. Similar to the previous RNA-Puzzles Round II experiment, the prediction of non-Watson-Crick interactions and the observed high atomic clash scores reveal a notable need for an algorithm of improvement. All prediction models and assessment results are available at http://ahsoka.u-strasbg.fr/rnapuzzles/.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhichao Miao
- Architecture et Réactivité de l'ARN, Université de Strasbourg, Institut de biologie moléculaire et cellulaire du CNRS, 67000 Strasbourg, France;
| | - Ryszard W Adamiak
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
- Poznan University of Technology, Institute of Computing Science, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
| | - Maciej Antczak
- Poznan University of Technology, Institute of Computing Science, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
| | - Robert T Batey
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0596, USA
| | - Alexander J Becka
- Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
| | - Marcin Biesiada
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
| | - Michał J Boniecki
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Janusz M Bujnicki
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, 61-614 Poznan, Poland
| | - Shi-Jie Chen
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Department of Biochemistry, and Informatics Institute, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA
| | - Clarence Yu Cheng
- Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
| | - Fang-Chieh Chou
- Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
| | | | - Rhiju Das
- Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
| | - Wayne K Dawson
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Feng Ding
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634, USA
| | - Nikolay V Dokholyan
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
| | - Stanisław Dunin-Horkawicz
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Caleb Geniesse
- Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
| | - Kalli Kappel
- Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
| | - Wipapat Kladwang
- Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
| | - Andrey Krokhotin
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
| | - Grzegorz E Łach
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - François Major
- Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC), Department of Computer Science and Operations Research, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, H3C 3J7, Canada
| | - Thomas H Mann
- Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
| | - Marcin Magnus
- Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, 02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | | | - Dinshaw J Patel
- Structural Biology Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York 10065, USA
| | - Joseph A Piccirilli
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
| | - Mariusz Popenda
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
| | - Katarzyna J Purzycka
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
| | - Aiming Ren
- Structural Biology Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York 10065, USA
- Life Sciences Institute, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Greggory M Rice
- Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3290, USA
| | - John Santalucia
- Department of Chemistry, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202, USA
- DNA Software, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104, USA
| | - Joanna Sarzynska
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
| | - Marta Szachniuk
- Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, 61-704 Poznan, Poland
- Poznan University of Technology, Institute of Computing Science, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
| | - Arpit Tandon
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
| | - Jeremiah J Trausch
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0596, USA
| | - Siqi Tian
- Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA
| | - Jian Wang
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
| | - Kevin M Weeks
- Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3290, USA
| | - Benfeard Williams
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
| | - Yi Xiao
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
| | - Xiaojun Xu
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Department of Biochemistry, and Informatics Institute, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA
| | - Dong Zhang
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Department of Biochemistry, and Informatics Institute, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri 65211, USA
| | - Tomasz Zok
- Poznan University of Technology, Institute of Computing Science, 60-965 Poznan, Poland
| | - Eric Westhof
- Architecture et Réactivité de l'ARN, Université de Strasbourg, Institut de biologie moléculaire et cellulaire du CNRS, 67000 Strasbourg, France;
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35
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Modelling the three-dimensional structure of the right-terminal domain of pospiviroids. Sci Rep 2017; 7:711. [PMID: 28386073 PMCID: PMC5429643 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-00764-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2017] [Accepted: 03/13/2017] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Viroids, the smallest know plant pathogens, consist solely of a circular, single-stranded, non-coding RNA. Thus for all of their biological functions, like replication, processing, and transport, they have to present sequence or structural features to exploit host proteins. Viroid binding protein 1 (Virp1) is indispensable for replication of pospiviroids, the largest genus of viroids, in a host plant as well as in protoplasts. Virp1 is known to bind at two sites in the terminal right (TR) domain of pospiviroids; each site consists of a purine- (R-) and a pyrimidine- (Y-)rich motif that are partially base-paired to each other. Here we model the important structural features of the domain and show that it contains an internal loop of two Y · Y cis Watson-Crick/Watson-Crick (cWW) pairs, an asymmetric internal loop including a cWW and a trans Watson/Hoogsteen pair, and a thermodynamically quite stable hairpin loop with several stacking interactions. These features are discussed in connection to the known biological functions of the TR domain.
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Taylor WR, Hamilton RS. Exploring RNA conformational space under sparse distance restraints. Sci Rep 2017; 7:44074. [PMID: 28281575 PMCID: PMC5345030 DOI: 10.1038/srep44074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2016] [Accepted: 02/01/2017] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
We show that the application of a small number of restraints predicted by coevolution analysis can provide a powerful restriction on the conformational freedom of an RNA molecule. The greatest degree of restriction occurs when a contact is predicted between the distal ends of a pair of adjacent stemloops but even with this location additional flexibilities in the molecule can mask the contribution. Multiple cross-links, especially those including a pseudoknot provided the strongest restraint on conformational freedom with the effect being most apparent in topologically simple folds and less so if the fold is more topologically entwined. Little was expected for large structures (over 300 bases) and although a few strong localised restrictions were observed, they contributed little to the restraint of the overall fold. Although contacts predicted using a correlated mutation analysis can provide some powerful restrictions on the conformational freedom of RNA molecules, they are too erratic in their occurrence and distribution to provide a general approach to the problem of RNA 3D structure prediction from sequence.
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Affiliation(s)
- William R. Taylor
- Computational Cell and Molecular Biology, Francis Crick Institute, London, NW1 1AT, UK
| | - Russell S. Hamilton
- Centre for Trophoblast Research (CTR), Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3DY, UK
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Structural studies of RNA-protein complexes: A hybrid approach involving hydrodynamics, scattering, and computational methods. Methods 2016; 118-119:146-162. [PMID: 27939506 DOI: 10.1016/j.ymeth.2016.12.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2016] [Revised: 12/01/2016] [Accepted: 12/05/2016] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
The diverse functional cellular roles played by ribonucleic acids (RNA) have emphasized the need to develop rapid and accurate methodologies to elucidate the relationship between the structure and function of RNA. Structural biology tools such as X-ray crystallography and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance are highly useful methods to obtain atomic-level resolution models of macromolecules. However, both methods have sample, time, and technical limitations that prevent their application to a number of macromolecules of interest. An emerging alternative to high-resolution structural techniques is to employ a hybrid approach that combines low-resolution shape information about macromolecules and their complexes from experimental hydrodynamic (e.g. analytical ultracentrifugation) and solution scattering measurements (e.g., solution X-ray or neutron scattering), with computational modeling to obtain atomic-level models. While promising, scattering methods rely on aggregation-free, monodispersed preparations and therefore the careful development of a quality control pipeline is fundamental to an unbiased and reliable structural determination. This review article describes hydrodynamic techniques that are highly valuable for homogeneity studies, scattering techniques useful to study the low-resolution shape, and strategies for computational modeling to obtain high-resolution 3D structural models of RNAs, proteins, and RNA-protein complexes.
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Oligonucleotide-based recognition in colloidal systems - opportunities and challenges. Curr Opin Colloid Interface Sci 2016. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cocis.2016.09.017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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Abstract
Deciphering the folding pathways and predicting the structures of complex three-dimensional biomolecules is central to elucidating biological function. RNA is single-stranded, which gives it the freedom to fold into complex secondary and tertiary structures. These structures endow RNA with the ability to perform complex chemistries and functions ranging from enzymatic activity to gene regulation. Given that RNA is involved in many essential cellular processes, it is critical to understand how it folds and functions in vivo. Within the last few years, methods have been developed to probe RNA structures in vivo and genome-wide. These studies reveal that RNA often adopts very different structures in vivo and in vitro, and provide profound insights into RNA biology. Nonetheless, both in vitro and in vivo approaches have limitations: studies in the complex and uncontrolled cellular environment make it difficult to obtain insight into RNA folding pathways and thermodynamics, and studies in vitro often lack direct cellular relevance, leaving a gap in our knowledge of RNA folding in vivo. This gap is being bridged by biophysical and mechanistic studies of RNA structure and function under conditions that mimic the cellular environment. To date, most artificial cytoplasms have used various polymers as molecular crowding agents and a series of small molecules as cosolutes. Studies under such in vivo-like conditions are yielding fresh insights, such as cooperative folding of functional RNAs and increased activity of ribozymes. These observations are accounted for in part by molecular crowding effects and interactions with other molecules. In this review, we report milestones in RNA folding in vitro and in vivo and discuss ongoing experimental and computational efforts to bridge the gap between these two conditions in order to understand how RNA folds in the cell.
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Coarse-grained modeling of RNA 3D structure. Methods 2016; 103:138-56. [PMID: 27125734 DOI: 10.1016/j.ymeth.2016.04.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2015] [Revised: 04/21/2016] [Accepted: 04/22/2016] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Functional RNA molecules depend on three-dimensional (3D) structures to carry out their tasks within the cell. Understanding how these molecules interact to carry out their biological roles requires a detailed knowledge of RNA 3D structure and dynamics as well as thermodynamics, which strongly governs the folding of RNA and RNA-RNA interactions as well as a host of other interactions within the cellular environment. Experimental determination of these properties is difficult, and various computational methods have been developed to model the folding of RNA 3D structures and their interactions with other molecules. However, computational methods also have their limitations, especially when the biological effects demand computation of the dynamics beyond a few hundred nanoseconds. For the researcher confronted with such challenges, a more amenable approach is to resort to coarse-grained modeling to reduce the number of data points and computational demand to a more tractable size, while sacrificing as little critical information as possible. This review presents an introduction to the topic of coarse-grained modeling of RNA 3D structures and dynamics, covering both high- and low-resolution strategies. We discuss how physics-based approaches compare with knowledge based methods that rely on databases of information. In the course of this review, we discuss important aspects in the reasoning process behind building different models and the goals and pitfalls that can result.
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Magnus M, Boniecki MJ, Dawson W, Bujnicki JM. SimRNAweb: a web server for RNA 3D structure modeling with optional restraints. Nucleic Acids Res 2016; 44:W315-9. [PMID: 27095203 PMCID: PMC4987879 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkw279] [Citation(s) in RCA: 89] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2016] [Accepted: 04/06/2016] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
RNA function in many biological processes depends on the formation of three-dimensional (3D) structures. However, RNA structure is difficult to determine experimentally, which has prompted the development of predictive computational methods. Here, we introduce a user-friendly online interface for modeling RNA 3D structures using SimRNA, a method that uses a coarse-grained representation of RNA molecules, utilizes the Monte Carlo method to sample the conformational space, and relies on a statistical potential to describe the interactions in the folding process. SimRNAweb makes SimRNA accessible to users who do not normally use high performance computational facilities or are unfamiliar with using the command line tools. The simplest input consists of an RNA sequence to fold RNA de novo. Alternatively, a user can provide a 3D structure in the PDB format, for instance a preliminary model built with some other technique, to jump-start the modeling close to the expected final outcome. The user can optionally provide secondary structure and distance restraints, and can freeze a part of the starting 3D structure. SimRNAweb can be used to model single RNA sequences and RNA-RNA complexes (up to 52 chains). The webserver is available at http://genesilico.pl/SimRNAweb.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marcin Magnus
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, PL-02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Michał J Boniecki
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, PL-02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Wayne Dawson
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, PL-02-109 Warsaw, Poland
| | - Janusz M Bujnicki
- Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, ul. Ks. Trojdena 4, PL-02-109 Warsaw, Poland Bioinformatics Laboratory, Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, ul. Umultowska 89, PL-61-614 Poznan, Poland
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