The conformation of ribosomes and rRNA

A comparative binding study of BIV Tat peptide against its TAR RNA duplex, RNA–DNA heteroduplex and DNA duplex

Association between RNA and DNA strands to form RNA-DNA heteroduplex is important in many biological processes such as transcription, DNA replication and reverse transcription. Herein, binding affinities of a 17-mer BIV Tat peptide is compared with TAR DNA duplex, TAR RNA-DNA heteroduplex and TAR RNA duplex. It was observed that binding affinities of Tat peptide is comparable against DNA-RNA heteroduplex and RNA duplex, whereas DNA duplex binding is decidedly poor.

Structure and dynamics of ribosomal RNA

Over the past two years, progress in X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy and electron microscopy has begun to reveal the complex structure of the RNA within the ribosome. The structures of ribosomal proteins L11 and S15, among others, show how RNA-protein interactions organize the conformation of the junctions between ribosomal RNA helices. Genetic and biochemical methods have also identified a three base-pair switch within the 16S rRNA that is linked to mRNA decoding.