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Biochemistry

Indifferent chaperones

Nature volume 449, pages 999–1000 (2007)Cite this article

How do nonspecific enzymes that help to correct RNA folding identify misfolded structures among similar, properly folded RNAs? It seems that careful discrimination has little to do with it.

Most RNAs adopt defined three-dimensional structures that allow them to function properly. But RNAs also often misfold into inactive structures, which can persist for a long time1. Fortunately, RNA chaperone proteins give misfolded RNAs the opportunity to refold correctly1,2. However, many RNA chaperones are nonspecific, and correctly folded and misfolded RNA structures tend to be very similar. On page 1014 of this issue, Bhaskaran and Russell3 describe the way one RNA chaperone, CYT-19, confronts this challenge.

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Figure 1: Schematic folding landscape of group-I intron RNAs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Eckhard Jankowsky is in the Department of Biochemistry and the Center for RNA Molecular Biology, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44106, USA. exj13@case.edu,

    Eckhard Jankowsky

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  1. Eckhard Jankowsky
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Jankowsky, E. Indifferent chaperones. Nature 449, 999–1000 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/449999a

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