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Kirkpatrick A, Patton K, Tetali P, Mitchell C. Markov Chain-Based Sampling for Exploring RNA Secondary Structure under the Nearest Neighbor Thermodynamic Model and Extended Applications. MATHEMATICAL AND COMPUTATIONAL APPLICATIONS 2020; 25. [PMID: 35924027 PMCID: PMC9344895 DOI: 10.3390/mca25040067] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) secondary structures and branching properties are important for determining functional ramifications in biology. While energy minimization of the Nearest Neighbor Thermodynamic Model (NNTM) is commonly used to identify such properties (number of hairpins, maximum ladder distance, etc.), it is difficult to know whether the resultant values fall within expected dispersion thresholds for a given energy function. The goal of this study was to construct a Markov chain capable of examining the dispersion of RNA secondary structures and branching properties obtained from NNTM energy function minimization independent of a specific nucleotide sequence. Plane trees are studied as a model for RNA secondary structure, with energy assigned to each tree based on the NNTM, and a corresponding Gibbs distribution is defined on the trees. Through a bijection between plane trees and 2-Motzkin paths, a Markov chain converging to the Gibbs distribution is constructed, and fast mixing time is established by estimating the spectral gap of the chain. The spectral gap estimate is obtained through a series of decompositions of the chain and also by building on known mixing time results for other chains on Dyck paths. The resulting algorithm can be used as a tool for exploring the branching structure of RNA, especially for long sequences, and to examine branching structure dependence on energy model parameters. Full exposition is provided for the mathematical techniques used with the expectation that these techniques will prove useful in bioinformatics, computational biology, and additional extended applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna Kirkpatrick
- School of Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
| | - Kalen Patton
- School of Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
- School of Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
| | - Prasad Tetali
- School of Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
- School of Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
| | - Cassie Mitchell
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
- Correspondence:
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Jian Y, Wang X, Qiu J, Wang H, Liu Z, Zhao Y, Zeng C. DIRECT: RNA contact predictions by integrating structural patterns. BMC Bioinformatics 2019; 20:497. [PMID: 31615418 PMCID: PMC6794908 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-019-3099-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2019] [Accepted: 09/13/2019] [Indexed: 01/25/2023] Open
Abstract
Background It is widely believed that tertiary nucleotide-nucleotide interactions are essential in determining RNA structure and function. Currently, direct coupling analysis (DCA) infers nucleotide contacts in a sequence from its homologous sequence alignment across different species. DCA and similar approaches that use sequence information alone typically yield a low accuracy, especially when the available homologous sequences are limited. Therefore, new methods for RNA structural contact inference are desirable because even a single correctly predicted tertiary contact can potentially make the difference between a correct and incorrectly predicted structure. Here we present a new method DIRECT (Direct Information REweighted by Contact Templates) that incorporates a Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) to augment the information on sequence co-variations with structural features in contact inference. Results Benchmark tests demonstrate that DIRECT achieves better overall performance than DCA approaches. Compared to mfDCA and plmDCA, DIRECT produces a substantial increase of 41 and 18%, respectively, in accuracy on average for contact prediction. DIRECT improves predictions for long-range contacts and captures more tertiary structural features. Conclusions We developed a hybrid approach that incorporates a Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) to augment the information on sequence co-variations with structural templates in contact inference. Our results demonstrate that DIRECT is able to improve the RNA contact prediction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yiren Jian
- Institute of Biophysics and Department of Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, China.,Department of Physics, The George Washington University, Washington DC, 20052, USA
| | - Xiaonan Wang
- Institute of Biophysics and Department of Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, China
| | - Jaidi Qiu
- Institute of Biophysics and Department of Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, China
| | - Huiwen Wang
- Institute of Biophysics and Department of Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, China
| | - Zhichao Liu
- Department of Physics, The George Washington University, Washington DC, 20052, USA
| | - 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.
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Wang K, Jian Y, Wang H, Zeng C, Zhao Y. RBind: computational network method to predict RNA binding sites. Bioinformatics 2019; 34:3131-3136. [PMID: 29718097 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/bty345] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2017] [Accepted: 04/24/2018] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Motivation Non-coding RNA molecules play essential roles by interacting with other molecules to perform various biological functions. However, it is difficult to determine RNA structures due to their flexibility. At present, the number of experimentally solved RNA-ligand and RNA-protein structures is still insufficient. Therefore, binding sites prediction of non-coding RNA is required to understand their functions. Results Current RNA binding site prediction algorithms produce many false positive nucleotides that are distance away from the binding sites. Here, we present a network approach, RBind, to predict the RNA binding sites. We benchmarked RBind in RNA-ligand and RNA-protein datasets. The average accuracy of 0.82 in RNA-ligand and 0.63 in RNA-protein testing showed that this network strategy has a reliable accuracy for binding sites prediction. Availability and implementation The codes and datasets are available at https://zhaolab.com.cn/RBind. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kaili Wang
- Institute of Biophysics and Department of Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
| | - Yiren Jian
- Department of Physics, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Huiwen Wang
- Institute of Biophysics and Department of Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
| | - Chen Zeng
- Institute of Biophysics and Department of Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China.,Department of Physics, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Yunjie Zhao
- Institute of Biophysics and Department of Physics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
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4
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5
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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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Wang J, Xiao Y. Using 3dRNA for RNA 3-D Structure Prediction and Evaluation. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2017; 57:5.9.1-5.9.12. [PMID: 28463400 DOI: 10.1002/cpbi.21] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
This unit describes how to use 3dRNA to predict RNA 3-D structures from their sequences and secondary (2-D) structures, and how to use 3dRNAscore to evaluate the predicted structures. The predicted RNA 3-D structures can be used to predict or understand their functions and can also be used to find the interactions between the RNA and other molecules. © 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jian Wang
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China
| | - Yi Xiao
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China
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Xiao X, Zhao B, Agris PF, Hall CK. Simulation study of the ability of a computationally-designed peptide to recognize target tRNA Lys3 and other decoy tRNAs. Protein Sci 2016; 25:2243-2255. [PMID: 27680513 DOI: 10.1002/pro.3056] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2016] [Accepted: 09/25/2016] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the ability of our computationally-designed peptide, Pept10 (PNWNGNRWLNNCLRG), to recognize the anticodon stem and loop (ASL) domain of the hypermodified tRNALys3 (mcm5 s2 U34 ,ms2 t6 A37 ), a reverse transcription primer of HIV replication. Five other ASLs, the singly modified ASLLys3 (ms2 t6 A37 ), ASLLys3 (s2 U34 ), ASLLys3 (Ψ39 ), ASLLys1,2 (t6 A37 ), and ASLGlu (s2 U34 ), were used as decoys. Explicit-solvent atomistic molecular dynamics simulations were performed to examine the process of binding of Pept10 with the target ASLLys3 (mcm5 s2 U34 ,ms2 t6 A37 ) and the decoy ASLs. Simulation results demonstrated that Pept10 is capable of recognizing the target ASLLys3 (mcm5 s2 U34 ,ms2 t6 A37 ) as well as one of the decoys, ASLLys3 (Ψ39 ), but screens out the other four decoy ASLs. The interchain van der Waals (VDW) and charge-charge (ELE + EGB) energies for the two best complexes were evaluated to shed light on the molecular recognition mechanism between Pept10 and ASLs. The results indicated that Pept10 recognizes and binds to the target ASLLys3 (mcm5 s2 U34 ,ms2 t6 A37 ) through residues W3 and R7 which interact with the nucleotides mcm5 s2 U34 , U35 , and ms2 t6 A37 via the interchain VDW energy. Pept10 also recognizes the decoy ASLLys3 (Ψ39 ) through residue R14 which contacts the nucleotide U36 via the interchain VDW energy. Regardless of the type of ASL, the positively charged arginines on Pept10 are attracted to the negatively charged phosphate linkages on the ASL via the interchain ELE + EGB energy, thereby enhancing the binding affinity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xingqing Xiao
- Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, 95-2767905
| | - Binwu Zhao
- Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, 95-2767905
| | - Paul F Agris
- The RNA Institute, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, New York, 12222
| | - Carol K Hall
- Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, 95-2767905
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8
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Shi YZ, Jin L, Wang FH, Zhu XL, Tan ZJ. Predicting 3D Structure, Flexibility, and Stability of RNA Hairpins in Monovalent and Divalent Ion Solutions. Biophys J 2016; 109:2654-2665. [PMID: 26682822 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2015.11.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2015] [Revised: 10/09/2015] [Accepted: 11/06/2015] [Indexed: 10/24/2022] Open
Abstract
A full understanding of RNA-mediated biology would require the knowledge of three-dimensional (3D) structures, structural flexibility, and stability of RNAs. To predict RNA 3D structures and stability, we have previously proposed a three-bead coarse-grained predictive model with implicit salt/solvent potentials. In this study, we further develop the model by improving the implicit-salt electrostatic potential and including a sequence-dependent coaxial stacking potential to enable the model to simulate RNA 3D structure folding in divalent/monovalent ion solutions. The model presented here can predict 3D structures of RNA hairpins with bulges/internal loops (<77 nucleotides) from their sequences at the corresponding experimental ion conditions with an overall improved accuracy compared to the experimental data; the model also makes reliable predictions for the flexibility of RNA hairpins with bulge loops of different lengths at several divalent/monovalent ion conditions. In addition, the model successfully predicts the stability of RNA hairpins with various loops/stems in divalent/monovalent ion solutions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ya-Zhou Shi
- Department of Physics and Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-structures of the Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
| | - Lei Jin
- Department of Physics and Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-structures of the Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
| | - Feng-Hua Wang
- Engineering Training Center, Jianghan University, Wuhan, China
| | - Xiao-Long Zhu
- Department of Physics, School of Physics and Information Engineering, Jianghan University, Wuhan, China
| | - Zhi-Jie Tan
- Department of Physics and Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-structures of the Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
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9
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Wang FH, Wu YY, Tan ZJ. Salt contribution to the flexibility of single-stranded nucleic acid offinite length. Biopolymers 2016; 99:370-81. [PMID: 23529689 DOI: 10.1002/bip.22189] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/08/2012] [Accepted: 11/18/2012] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
Nucleic acids are negatively charged macromolecules and their structure properties are strongly coupled to metal ions in solutions. In this article, the salt effects on the flexibility of single-stranded (ss) nucleic acid chain ranging from 12 to 120 nucleotides are investigated systematically by the coarse-grained Monte Carlo simulations where the salt ions are considered explicitly and the ss chain is modeled with the virtual-bond structural model. Our calculations show that, the increase of ion concentration causes the structural collapse of ss chain and multivalent ions are much more efficient in causing such collapse, and both trivalent/small divalent ions can induce more compact state than a random relaxation state. We found that monovalent, divalent, and trivalent ions can all overcharge ss chain, and the dominating source for such overcharging changes from ion-exclusion-volume effect to ion Coulomb correlations. In addition, the predicted Na(+) and Mg(2+)-dependent persistence length l(p)'s of ss nucleic acid are in accordance with the available experimental data, and through systematic calculations, we obtained the empirical formulas for l(p) as a function of [Na(+)], [Mg(2+)] and chain length.
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Affiliation(s)
- Feng-Hua Wang
- Department of Physics and Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-structures of Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China
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10
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Yan K, Arfat Y, Li D, Zhao F, Chen Z, Yin C, Sun Y, Hu L, Yang T, Qian A. Structure Prediction: New Insights into Decrypting Long Noncoding RNAs. Int J Mol Sci 2016; 17:ijms17010132. [PMID: 26805815 PMCID: PMC4730372 DOI: 10.3390/ijms17010132] [Citation(s) in RCA: 45] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/10/2015] [Revised: 12/18/2015] [Accepted: 01/12/2016] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), which form a diverse class of RNAs, remain the least understood type of noncoding RNAs in terms of their nature and identification. Emerging evidence has revealed that a small number of newly discovered lncRNAs perform important and complex biological functions such as dosage compensation, chromatin regulation, genomic imprinting, and nuclear organization. However, understanding the wide range of functions of lncRNAs related to various processes of cellular networks remains a great experimental challenge. Structural versatility is critical for RNAs to perform various functions and provides new insights into probing the functions of lncRNAs. In recent years, the computational method of RNA structure prediction has been developed to analyze the structure of lncRNAs. This novel methodology has provided basic but indispensable information for the rapid, large-scale and in-depth research of lncRNAs. This review focuses on mainstream RNA structure prediction methods at the secondary and tertiary levels to offer an additional approach to investigating the functions of lncRNAs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kun Yan
- Key Laboratory for Space Bioscience & Biotechnology, Institute of Special Environmental Biophysics, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 127 Youyi Xilu, Xi'an 710072, China.
| | - Yasir Arfat
- Key Laboratory for Space Bioscience & Biotechnology, Institute of Special Environmental Biophysics, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 127 Youyi Xilu, Xi'an 710072, China.
| | - Dijie Li
- Key Laboratory for Space Bioscience & Biotechnology, Institute of Special Environmental Biophysics, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 127 Youyi Xilu, Xi'an 710072, China.
| | - Fan Zhao
- Key Laboratory for Space Bioscience & Biotechnology, Institute of Special Environmental Biophysics, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 127 Youyi Xilu, Xi'an 710072, China.
| | - Zhihao Chen
- Key Laboratory for Space Bioscience & Biotechnology, Institute of Special Environmental Biophysics, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 127 Youyi Xilu, Xi'an 710072, China.
| | - Chong Yin
- Key Laboratory for Space Bioscience & Biotechnology, Institute of Special Environmental Biophysics, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 127 Youyi Xilu, Xi'an 710072, China.
| | - Yulong Sun
- Key Laboratory for Space Bioscience & Biotechnology, Institute of Special Environmental Biophysics, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 127 Youyi Xilu, Xi'an 710072, China.
| | - Lifang Hu
- Key Laboratory for Space Bioscience & Biotechnology, Institute of Special Environmental Biophysics, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 127 Youyi Xilu, Xi'an 710072, China.
| | - Tuanmin Yang
- Department of Bone Disease Oncology, Hong-Hui Hospital, Xi'an Jiaotong University College of Medicine, South Door slightly Friendship Road 555, Xi'an 710054, China.
| | - Airong Qian
- Key Laboratory for Space Bioscience & Biotechnology, Institute of Special Environmental Biophysics, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 127 Youyi Xilu, Xi'an 710072, China.
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Wang J, Zhao Y, Wang J, Xiao Y. Computational study of stability of an H-H-type pseudoknot motif. PHYSICAL REVIEW. E, STATISTICAL, NONLINEAR, AND SOFT MATTER PHYSICS 2015; 92:062705. [PMID: 26764725 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.92.062705] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/20/2015] [Indexed: 05/24/2023]
Abstract
Motifs in RNA tertiary structures are important to their structural organizations and biological functions. Here we consider an H-H-type pseudoknot (HHpk) motif that consists of two hairpins connected by a junction loop and with kissing interactions between the two hairpin loops. Such a tertiary structural motif is recurrently found in RNA tertiary structures, but is difficult to predict computationally. So it is important to understand the mechanism of its formation and stability. Here we investigate the stability of the HHpk tertiary structure by using an all-atom molecular dynamics simulation. The results indicate that the HHpk tertiary structure is stable. However, it is found that this stability is not due to the helix-helix packing, as is usually expected, but is maintained by the combined action of the kissing hairpin loops and junctions, although the former plays the main role. Stable HHpk motifs may form structural platforms for the molecules to realize their biological functions. These results are useful for understanding the construction principle of RNA tertiary structures and structure prediction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jun Wang
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
| | - Yunjie Zhao
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
| | - Jian Wang
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
| | - Yi Xiao
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
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Wang J, Zhao Y, Zhu C, Xiao Y. 3dRNAscore: a distance and torsion angle dependent evaluation function of 3D RNA structures. Nucleic Acids Res 2015; 43:e63. [PMID: 25712091 PMCID: PMC4446410 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkv141] [Citation(s) in RCA: 58] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2014] [Accepted: 02/06/2015] [Indexed: 01/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Model evaluation is a necessary step for better prediction and design of 3D RNA structures. For proteins, this has been widely studied and the knowledge-based statistical potential has been proved to be one of effective ways to solve this problem. Currently, a few knowledge-based statistical potentials have also been proposed to evaluate predicted models of RNA tertiary structures. The benchmark tests showed that they can identify the native structures effectively but further improvements are needed to identify near-native structures and those with non-canonical base pairs. Here, we present a novel knowledge-based potential, 3dRNAscore, which combines distance-dependent and dihedral-dependent energies. The benchmarks on different testing datasets all show that 3dRNAscore are more efficient than existing evaluation methods in recognizing native state from a pool of near-native states of RNAs as well as in ranking near-native states of RNA models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jian Wang
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department 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
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department of Physics and Key Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics of the Ministry of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
| | - Chunyan Zhu
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department 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
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department 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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13
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RNA folding: structure prediction, folding kinetics and ion electrostatics. ADVANCES IN EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY 2015; 827:143-83. [PMID: 25387965 DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-9245-5_11] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
Beyond the "traditional" functions such as gene storage, transport and protein synthesis, recent discoveries reveal that RNAs have important "new" biological functions including the RNA silence and gene regulation of riboswitch. Such functions of noncoding RNAs are strongly coupled to the RNA structures and proper structure change, which naturally leads to the RNA folding problem including structure prediction and folding kinetics. Due to the polyanionic nature of RNAs, RNA folding structure, stability and kinetics are strongly coupled to the ion condition of solution. The main focus of this chapter is to review the recent progress in the three major aspects in RNA folding problem: structure prediction, folding kinetics and ion electrostatics. This chapter will introduce both the recent experimental and theoretical progress, while emphasize the theoretical modelling on the three aspects in RNA folding.
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14
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Shi YZ, Wang FH, Wu YY, Tan ZJ. A coarse-grained model with implicit salt for RNAs: Predicting 3D structure, stability and salt effect. J Chem Phys 2014; 141:105102. [DOI: 10.1063/1.4894752] [Citation(s) in RCA: 64] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/11/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Ya-Zhou Shi
- Department of Physics and Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-Structures of Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
| | - Feng-Hua Wang
- Department of Physics and Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-Structures of Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
| | - Yuan-Yan Wu
- Department of Physics and Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-Structures of Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
| | - Zhi-Jie Tan
- Department of Physics and Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro- and Nano-Structures of Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
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15
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Xiao X, Agris PF, Hall CK. Molecular recognition mechanism of peptide chain bound to the tRNA(Lys3) anticodon loop in silico. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2014; 33:14-27. [PMID: 24417415 DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2013.869660] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
The mechanism by which proteins recognize and bind the post-transcriptional modifications of RNAs is unknown, yet these interactions play important functions in biology. Atomistic molecular dynamics simulations were performed to examine the folding of the model peptide chain -RVTHHAFLGAHRTVG- and the complex formed by the folded peptide with the native anticodon stem and loop of the human tRNA(Lys3) (hASL(Lys3)) in order to explore the binding mechanism. By analyzing and comparing two folded conformations of this peptide obtained from the folding simulation, we found that the van der Waals (VDW) energy is necessary for the thermal stability of the peptide, and the charge-charge (ELE + EGB) energy is crucial for determining the three-dimensional folded structure of the peptide backbone. Subsequently, two conformations of the peptide were employed to investigate their binding behaviors to hASL(Lys3). The metastable folded peptide was found to bind to hASL(Lys3) much easier than the stable folded peptide in the binding simulations. An energetic analysis reveals that the VDW energy favors the binding, whereas the ELE + EGB energies disfavor the binding. Arginines on the peptide preferentially attract the phosphate backbone via the inter-chain ELE + EGB interaction, significantly contributing to the binding affinity. The hydrophobic phenylalanine interacts with the anticodon loop of hASL(Lys3) via the inter-chain VDW interaction, significantly contributing to the binding specificity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xingqing Xiao
- a Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department , North Carolina State University , Engineering Building I, 911 Partners Way, Raleigh , NC 27695-7905 , USA
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Large-scale study of long non-coding RNA functions based on structure and expression features. SCIENCE CHINA-LIFE SCIENCES 2013; 56:953-9. [PMID: 24091687 DOI: 10.1007/s11427-013-4556-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2013] [Accepted: 09/02/2013] [Indexed: 02/01/2023]
Abstract
Mammals and other complex organisms can transcribe an abundance of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) that fulfill a wide variety of regulatory roles in many biological processes. These roles, including as scaffolds and as guides for protein-coding genes, mainly depend on the structure and expression level of lncRNAs. In this review, we focus on the current methods for analyzing lncRNA structure and expression, which is basic but necessary information for in-depth, large-scale analysis of lncRNA functions.
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Guo D, Liu S, Huang Y, Xiao Y. Preorientation of protein and RNA just before contacting. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2013; 31:716-28. [DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2012.708604] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
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18
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Zhao Y, Huang Y, Gong Z, Wang Y, Man J, Xiao Y. Automated and fast building of three-dimensional RNA structures. Sci Rep 2012; 2:734. [PMID: 23071898 PMCID: PMC3471093 DOI: 10.1038/srep00734] [Citation(s) in RCA: 140] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2012] [Accepted: 09/17/2012] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Building tertiary structures of non-coding RNA is required to understand their functions and design new molecules. Current algorithms of RNA tertiary structure prediction give satisfactory accuracy only for small size and simple topology and many of them need manual manipulation. Here, we present an automated and fast program,3dRNA, for RNA tertiary structure prediction with reasonable accuracy for RNAs of larger size and complex topology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yunjie Zhao
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department of Physics Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
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Gong Z, Zhao Y, Chen C, Xiao Y. Computational study of unfolding and regulation mechanism of preQ1 riboswitches. PLoS One 2012; 7:e45239. [PMID: 23028870 PMCID: PMC3444477 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0045239] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2012] [Accepted: 08/17/2012] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Riboswitches are novel RNA regulatory elements. Each riboswitch molecule consists of two domains: aptamer and express platform. The three-dimensional (3D) structure of the aptamer domain, depending on ligand binding or not, controls that of the express platform, which then switches on or off transcriptional or translational process. Here we study the two types of preQ(1) riboswitch aptamers from T. Tengcongensis (denoted as Tte preQ(1) riboswitch for short below) and Bacillus subtilis (denoted as Bsu preQ(1) riboswitch for short below), respectively. The free-state 3D structure of the Tte preQ(1) riboswitch is the same as its bound state but the Bsu preQ(1) riboswitch is not. Therefore, it is very interesting to investigate how these riboswitches realize their different regulation functions. We simulated the unfolding of these two aptamers through all-atom molecular dynamic simulation and found that they have similar unfolding or folding pathways and ligand-binding processes. The main difference between them is the folding intermediate states. The similarity and difference of their unfolding or folding dynamics may suggest their similar regulation mechanisms and account for their different functions, respectively. These results are also useful to understand the regulation mechanism of other riboswitches with free-state 3D structures similar to their bound states.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhou Gong
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China
| | - Yunjie Zhao
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China
| | - Changjun Chen
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China
| | - Yi Xiao
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China
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Hu JP, He HQ, Tang DY, Sun GF, Zhang YQ, Fan J, Chang S. Study on the interactions between diketo-acid inhibitors and prototype foamy virus integrase-DNA complex via molecular docking and comparative molecular dynamics simulation methods. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2012; 31:734-47. [PMID: 22913375 DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2012.709458] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/16/2023]
Abstract
Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) integrase (IN) is an important drug target for anti-acquired immune deficiency disease (AIDS) treatment and diketo-acid (DKA) inhibitors are potent and selective inhibitors of HIV-1 IN. Due to lack of three-dimensional structures including detail interactions between HIV-1 IN and its substrate viral DNA, the drug design and screening platform remains incompleteness and deficient. In addition, the action mechanism of DKA inhibitors with HIV-1 IN is not well understood. In view of the high homology between the structure of prototype foamy virus (PFV) IN and that of HIV-1 IN, we used PFV IN as a surrogate model for HIV-1 IN to investigate the inhibitory mechanism of raltegravir (RLV) and the binding modes with a series of DKA inhibitors. Firstly, molecular dynamics simulations of PFV IN, IN-RLV, IN-DNA, and IN-DNA-RLV systems were performed for 10 ns each. The interactions and inhibitory mechanism of RLV to PFV IN were explored through overall dynamics behaviors, catalytic loop conformation distribution, and hydrogen bond network analysis. The results show that the coordinated interactions of RLV with IN and viral DNA slightly reduce the flexibility of catalytic loop region of IN, and remarkably restrict the mobility of the CA end of viral DNA, which may lead to the partial loss of the inhibitory activity of IN. Then, we docked a series of DKA inhibitors into PFV IN-DNA receptor and obtained the IN-DNA-inhibitor complexes. The docking results between PFV IN-DNA and DKA inhibitors agree well with the corresponding complex of HIV-1 IN, which proves the dependability of PFV IN-DNA used for the anti-AIDS drug screening. Our study may help to make clear some theoretical questions and to design anti-AIDS drug based on the structure of IN.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jian-Ping Hu
- Department of Chemistry and Life Science, Leshan Normal University, Leshan, China.
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21
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Chen C, Huang Y, Xiao Y. Enhanced sampling of molecular dynamics simulation of peptides and proteins by double coupling to thermal bath. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2012; 31:206-14. [PMID: 22830440 DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2012.698244] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
Low sampling efficiency in conformational space is the well-known problem for conventional molecular dynamics. It greatly increases the difficulty for molecules to find the transition path to native state, and costs amount of CPU time. To accelerate the sampling, in this paper, we re-couple the critical degrees of freedom in the molecule to environment temperature, like dihedrals in generalized coordinates or nonhydrogen atoms in Cartesian coordinate. After applying to ALA dipeptide model, we find that this modified molecular dynamics greatly enhances the sampling behavior in the conformational space and provides more information about the state-to-state transition, while conventional molecular dynamics fails to do so. Moreover, from the results of 16 independent 100 ns simulations by the new method, it shows that trpzip2 has one-half chances to reach the naive state in all the trajectories, which is greatly higher than conventional molecular dynamics. Such an improvement would provide a potential way for searching the conformational space or predicting the most stable states of peptides and proteins.
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Affiliation(s)
- Changjun Chen
- Department of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
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22
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Chang S, He HQ, Hu JP, Jiao X, Tian XH. Network models reveal stability and structural rearrangement of signal recognition particle. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2012; 30:150-9. [PMID: 22702726 DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2012.677765] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
The signal recognition particle (SRP) and its receptors (SR) mediate the cotranslational targeting of the membrane and secretory proteins in all cells. In Escherichia coli, SRP is composed of the Ffh protein and the 4.5S SRP RNA. Ffh is a multidomain protein comprising a methionine-rich (M) domain, a helical N domain, and a Ras-like guanine triphosphatase (GTPase) (G) domain. The N and G domains are commonly referred to as one structural unit, the NG domain. In this article, the complex structure of SRP and SR is investigated with the Gaussian network model (GNM) and anisotropic network model (ANM). GNM provides the information of structure stability. It is found that the intermolecular interactions between SRP and SR can obviously decrease the fluctuation of NG domains. Nevertheless, the large structural rearrangement will take place during the cotranslational protein targeting cycle. Hence, the moving directions of fluctuation regions are further ascertained by using cross-correlation analysis and the ANM. The NG domain of Ffh undergoes a clockwise rotation around the GM linker and the M domain of Ffh shows an opposite direction to the NG domain. These functional movements will facilitate the SRP structure to transform into the free form and the sequence-bound form. These simple coarse-grained analyses can be used as a general and quick method for the mechanism studies of protein assembly and supramolecular systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shan Chang
- College of Informatics, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China.
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Gong Z, Zhao Y, Chen C, Xiao Y. Role of ligand binding in structural organization of add A-riboswitch aptamer: a molecular dynamics simulation. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2012; 29:403-16. [PMID: 21875158 DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2011.10507394] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
The specific binding of ligands is the first step of gene expression or translation regulation by riboswitches. However, understanding the mechanism of the specific binding is still difficult because the tertiary structures of the riboswitch aptamers are available almost only for ligand-bound state at present. In this paper we hope to give some insights into this problem through the studies of the role of ligand-aptamer interaction in the structural organization of add A-riboswitch aptamer, based on the crystal structure of the ligand-bound aptamer. We use all-atom molecular dynamics to simulate the behaviors of the aptamer in ligand-bound, free and mutated states by Amber force field. The results show that the correct paring of the ligand adenine with the nucleotide U74 in the binding pocket is crucial to stabilizing the conformations of the ligand-bound aptamer, especially the helix P1 connecting the expression platform. Our results also suggest that both the nucleotide U74 and U51 may be the key sites of the ligand recognition but the former has much higher probability as the initial docking site. This is in agreement with previous experimental results.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhou Gong
- Biomolecular Physics and Modeling Group, Department of Physics Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
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