Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 9
Characterising RNA Dynamics
using NMR Residual Dipolar
Couplings
CATHERINE D. EICHHORN, SHAN YANG AND
HASHIM M. AL-HASHIMI*
Department of Chemistry & Biophysics, The University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
*E-mail: hashimi@umich.edu
9.1 Introduction
Our basic understanding of RNA's role in biology has changed profoundly
over the past decade with the discovery of non-coding RNA molecules
(ncRNAs) as abundant players in gene expression and regulation. 1-4
Accompanying these discoveries has been the growing realisation that most
regulatory RNA molecules do not fold into a single native conformation, but
rather, can adopt many different conformations along a free-energy land-
scape. 5-8 These distinct conformations are often preferentially stabilised by
cellular cues to effect a given biological function. 6,7,9 For example,
riboswitches are a new class of regulatory RNA molecules, typically located
in the 59 untranslated region of genes, that transition between different
secondary structures to regulate the expression of genes in response to a wide
range of cellular stimuli. 10,11 Beyond understanding function, RNA is
increasing in its importance as a drug target 12 and a dynamic view of RNA
structure is essential for successfully applying structure-based approaches in
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