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Structural basis for the coevolution of a viral RNA–protein complex

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology volume 15, pages 103–105 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The cocrystal structure of the PP7 bacteriophage coat protein in complex with its translational operator identifies a distinct mode of sequence-specific RNA recognition when compared to the well-characterized MS2 coat protein–RNA complex. The structure reveals the molecular basis of the PP7 coat protein's ability to selectively bind its cognate RNA, and it demonstrates that the conserved β-sheet surface is a flexible architecture that can evolve to recognize diverse RNA hairpins.

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Figure 1: Coat-protein sequence alignment and overview of the MS2 coat protein and PP7ΔFG complexes with RNA.
Figure 2: RNA-protein interface.
Figure 3: Orientation of adenine recognition pockets.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the US National Institutes of Health (grants AR-41480 and EB-002060 to R.H.S and National Research Service Award institutional training grant (5T32HL007675-19) support to J.A.C.) and the Albert Einstein Cancer Center. The authors wish to thank the staff at the National Synchrotron Light Source X29a beamline for assistance with data collection, the staff at the Argonne Advanced Photon Source Structural GenomiX Collaborative Access Team beamline for express crystallography data collection and G. Arenas, M. Hennig, U. Meier, S. Nguyen and S. Ryder for helpful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Anatomy and Structural Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Ave, Bronx, 10461, New York, USA

    Jeffrey A Chao & Robert H Singer

  2. Biochemistry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Ave, Bronx, 10461, New York, USA

    Yury Patskovsky & Steven C Almo

Authors
  1. Jeffrey A Chao
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  2. Yury Patskovsky
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  4. Robert H Singer
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Contributions

J.A.C. designed and performed the experiments. Y.P. assisted with crystallography. J.A.C., Y.P., S.C.A. and R.H.S. wrote and discussed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Robert H Singer.

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Supplementary Figures 1–3, Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 5810 kb)

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Chao, J., Patskovsky, Y., Almo, S. et al. Structural basis for the coevolution of a viral RNA–protein complex. Nat Struct Mol Biol 15, 103–105 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb1327

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