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Structural biology

RNA exerts self-control

Nature volume 500, pages 279–280 (2013)Cite this article

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A crystal structure of two bound RNA molecules not only provides insight into how regulatory riboswitch sequences affect messenger RNA expression, but also expands our understanding of RNA structure and architecture. See Letter p.363

Over the past three decades, our knowledge of the role of RNA in cellular processes has expanded enormously1. For example, the structures of various regulatory RNA sequences called riboswitches have revealed how they affect the transcription or translation of their downstream messenger RNA sequences through the recognition and binding of specific ligands2. On page 363 of this issue, Zhang and Ferré D'Amaré3 provide another structural insight — this time, into a bacterial riboswitch, called a T-box, in complex with a transfer RNA molecule. Their data elucidate how one RNA molecule recognizes another RNA of similar size and regulates its own transcription through a simple switching mechanismFootnote 1.

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Figure 1: RNA meets RNA.

Notes

  1. *This article and the paper under discussion3 were published online on 28 July 2013.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bhaskar Chetnani and Alfonso Mondragón are in the Department of Molecular Biosciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.,

    Bhaskar Chetnani & Alfonso Mondragón

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  1. Bhaskar Chetnani
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  2. Alfonso Mondragón
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Correspondence to Alfonso Mondragón.

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Chetnani, B., Mondragón, A. RNA exerts self-control. Nature 500, 279–280 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12460

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