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RNA folding

A tale of two riboswitches

Riboswitches are so named because they switch gene expression on or off in response to binding of specific metabolites. Two evolutionarily and mechanistically divergent riboswitches that recognize the universal methyl donor S-adenosylmethionine are shown to undergo dynamic conformational sampling before ligand binding.

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Figure 1: Conformational switching behavior of SAM-I and SAM-II riboswitches.

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Correspondence to Ming C Hammond.

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Hammond, M. A tale of two riboswitches. Nat Chem Biol 7, 342–343 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.588

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