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Engineering Crystal Packing in RNA Structures I: Past and Future Strategies for Engineering RNA Packing in Crystals

X-ray crystallography remains a powerful method to gain atomistic insights into the catalytic and regulatory functions of RNA molecules. However, the technique requires the preparation of diffraction-quality crystals. This is often a resource- and time-consuming venture because RNA crystallization i...

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Autores principales: Pujari, Narsimha, Saundh, Stephanie L., Acquah, Francis A., Mooers, Blaine H. M., Ferré-D’Amaré, Adrian R., Leung, Adelaine Kwun-Wai
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8570644/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34745656
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cryst11080952
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author Pujari, Narsimha
Saundh, Stephanie L.
Acquah, Francis A.
Mooers, Blaine H. M.
Ferré-D’Amaré, Adrian R.
Leung, Adelaine Kwun-Wai
author_facet Pujari, Narsimha
Saundh, Stephanie L.
Acquah, Francis A.
Mooers, Blaine H. M.
Ferré-D’Amaré, Adrian R.
Leung, Adelaine Kwun-Wai
author_sort Pujari, Narsimha
collection PubMed
description X-ray crystallography remains a powerful method to gain atomistic insights into the catalytic and regulatory functions of RNA molecules. However, the technique requires the preparation of diffraction-quality crystals. This is often a resource- and time-consuming venture because RNA crystallization is hindered by the conformational heterogeneity of RNA, as well as the limited opportunities for stereospecific intermolecular interactions between RNA molecules. The limited success at crystallization explains in part the smaller number of RNA-only structures in the Protein Data Bank. Several approaches have been developed to aid the formation of well-ordered RNA crystals. The majority of these are construct-engineering techniques that aim to introduce crystal contacts to favor the formation of well-diffracting crystals. A typical example is the insertion of tetraloop–tetraloop receptor pairs into non-essential RNA segments to promote intermolecular association. Other methods of promoting crystallization involve chaperones and crystallization-friendly molecules that increase RNA stability and improve crystal packing. In this review, we discuss the various techniques that have been successfully used to facilitate crystal packing of RNA molecules, recent advances in construct engineering, and directions for future research in this vital aspect of RNA crystallography.
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spelling pubmed-85706442021-11-05 Engineering Crystal Packing in RNA Structures I: Past and Future Strategies for Engineering RNA Packing in Crystals Pujari, Narsimha Saundh, Stephanie L. Acquah, Francis A. Mooers, Blaine H. M. Ferré-D’Amaré, Adrian R. Leung, Adelaine Kwun-Wai Crystals (Basel) Article X-ray crystallography remains a powerful method to gain atomistic insights into the catalytic and regulatory functions of RNA molecules. However, the technique requires the preparation of diffraction-quality crystals. This is often a resource- and time-consuming venture because RNA crystallization is hindered by the conformational heterogeneity of RNA, as well as the limited opportunities for stereospecific intermolecular interactions between RNA molecules. The limited success at crystallization explains in part the smaller number of RNA-only structures in the Protein Data Bank. Several approaches have been developed to aid the formation of well-ordered RNA crystals. The majority of these are construct-engineering techniques that aim to introduce crystal contacts to favor the formation of well-diffracting crystals. A typical example is the insertion of tetraloop–tetraloop receptor pairs into non-essential RNA segments to promote intermolecular association. Other methods of promoting crystallization involve chaperones and crystallization-friendly molecules that increase RNA stability and improve crystal packing. In this review, we discuss the various techniques that have been successfully used to facilitate crystal packing of RNA molecules, recent advances in construct engineering, and directions for future research in this vital aspect of RNA crystallography. 2021-08-15 2021-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8570644/ /pubmed/34745656 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cryst11080952 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Pujari, Narsimha
Saundh, Stephanie L.
Acquah, Francis A.
Mooers, Blaine H. M.
Ferré-D’Amaré, Adrian R.
Leung, Adelaine Kwun-Wai
Engineering Crystal Packing in RNA Structures I: Past and Future Strategies for Engineering RNA Packing in Crystals
title Engineering Crystal Packing in RNA Structures I: Past and Future Strategies for Engineering RNA Packing in Crystals
title_full Engineering Crystal Packing in RNA Structures I: Past and Future Strategies for Engineering RNA Packing in Crystals
title_fullStr Engineering Crystal Packing in RNA Structures I: Past and Future Strategies for Engineering RNA Packing in Crystals
title_full_unstemmed Engineering Crystal Packing in RNA Structures I: Past and Future Strategies for Engineering RNA Packing in Crystals
title_short Engineering Crystal Packing in RNA Structures I: Past and Future Strategies for Engineering RNA Packing in Crystals
title_sort engineering crystal packing in rna structures i: past and future strategies for engineering rna packing in crystals
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8570644/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34745656
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cryst11080952
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