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Unzippers, Resolvers and Sensors: A Structural and Functional Biochemistry Tale of RNA Helicases

The centrality of RNA within the biological world is an irrefutable fact that currently attracts increasing attention from the scientific community. The panoply of functional RNAs requires the existence of specific biological caretakers, RNA helicases, devoted to maintain the proper folding of those...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Leitão, Ana Lúcia, Costa, Marina C., Enguita, Francisco J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4346836/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25622248
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms16022269
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author Leitão, Ana Lúcia
Costa, Marina C.
Enguita, Francisco J.
author_facet Leitão, Ana Lúcia
Costa, Marina C.
Enguita, Francisco J.
author_sort Leitão, Ana Lúcia
collection PubMed
description The centrality of RNA within the biological world is an irrefutable fact that currently attracts increasing attention from the scientific community. The panoply of functional RNAs requires the existence of specific biological caretakers, RNA helicases, devoted to maintain the proper folding of those molecules, resolving unstable structures. However, evolution has taken advantage of the specific position and characteristics of RNA helicases to develop new functions for these proteins, which are at the interface of the basic processes for transference of information from DNA to proteins. RNA helicases are involved in many biologically relevant processes, not only as RNA chaperones, but also as signal transducers, scaffolds of molecular complexes, and regulatory elements. Structural biology studies during the last decade, founded in X-ray crystallography, have characterized in detail several RNA-helicases. This comprehensive review summarizes the structural knowledge accumulated in the last two decades within this family of proteins, with special emphasis on the structure-function relationships of the most widely-studied families of RNA helicases: the DEAD-box, RIG-I-like and viral NS3 classes.
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spelling pubmed-43468362015-04-03 Unzippers, Resolvers and Sensors: A Structural and Functional Biochemistry Tale of RNA Helicases Leitão, Ana Lúcia Costa, Marina C. Enguita, Francisco J. Int J Mol Sci Review The centrality of RNA within the biological world is an irrefutable fact that currently attracts increasing attention from the scientific community. The panoply of functional RNAs requires the existence of specific biological caretakers, RNA helicases, devoted to maintain the proper folding of those molecules, resolving unstable structures. However, evolution has taken advantage of the specific position and characteristics of RNA helicases to develop new functions for these proteins, which are at the interface of the basic processes for transference of information from DNA to proteins. RNA helicases are involved in many biologically relevant processes, not only as RNA chaperones, but also as signal transducers, scaffolds of molecular complexes, and regulatory elements. Structural biology studies during the last decade, founded in X-ray crystallography, have characterized in detail several RNA-helicases. This comprehensive review summarizes the structural knowledge accumulated in the last two decades within this family of proteins, with special emphasis on the structure-function relationships of the most widely-studied families of RNA helicases: the DEAD-box, RIG-I-like and viral NS3 classes. MDPI 2015-01-22 /pmc/articles/PMC4346836/ /pubmed/25622248 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms16022269 Text en © 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Leitão, Ana Lúcia
Costa, Marina C.
Enguita, Francisco J.
Unzippers, Resolvers and Sensors: A Structural and Functional Biochemistry Tale of RNA Helicases
title Unzippers, Resolvers and Sensors: A Structural and Functional Biochemistry Tale of RNA Helicases
title_full Unzippers, Resolvers and Sensors: A Structural and Functional Biochemistry Tale of RNA Helicases
title_fullStr Unzippers, Resolvers and Sensors: A Structural and Functional Biochemistry Tale of RNA Helicases
title_full_unstemmed Unzippers, Resolvers and Sensors: A Structural and Functional Biochemistry Tale of RNA Helicases
title_short Unzippers, Resolvers and Sensors: A Structural and Functional Biochemistry Tale of RNA Helicases
title_sort unzippers, resolvers and sensors: a structural and functional biochemistry tale of rna helicases
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4346836/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25622248
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms16022269
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