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Structural biology

Aerial view of the HIV genome

Nature volume 460, pages 696–697 (2009)Cite this article

A bird's-eye view of the higher-order structure of HIV-1's entire RNA genome reveals new motifs in surprising places. Structural biologists can now zoom in on these regions to explore their functions further.

The methods commonly used to obtain detailed atomic-resolution images of biomolecules — nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography — have limitations that preclude analysis of the structure of entire RNA genomes. Both techniques rely on measuring the interactions between light and matter. In NMR spectroscopy, a solution containing the RNA of interest is immersed in a magnetic field and radiofrequencies are used to excite signals from its individual nuclei. As the size of the RNA under analysis increases, the signals become weaker and more congested, limiting structure determination of RNAs that are hundreds of nucleotides long.

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Figure 1: HIV.

NIBSC/SPL

Figure 2: The HIV-1 RNA genome shapes up.

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  1. Hashim M. Al-Hashimi is in the Department of Chemistry and Biophysics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1055, USA. hashimi@umich.edu,

    Hashim M. Al-Hashimi

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  1. Hashim M. Al-Hashimi
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Al-Hashimi, H. Aerial view of the HIV genome. Nature 460, 696–697 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/460696a

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