RNA folding articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    rG4s are G-quadruplex structures found in transcriptome. Many RNAs can fold into rG4s in vitro, yet their folding and functions in vivo are not well understood. Here the authors showed that rG4s folding is dynamically regulated under stress in human cells.

    • Prakash Kharel
    • , Marta Fay
    •  & Pavel Ivanov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 infection is important to control the pandemic. Here the authors show the biological and pathological role of RNA G-quadruplex structure in both SARS-CoV-2 genome and host factors, particularly TMPRSS2.

    • Geng Liu
    • , Wenya Du
    •  & Xianghui Fu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Early steps of large 60S ribosomal subunit biogenesis are not well understood. Here, the authors combine biochemical experiments with protein-RNA crosslinking and mass spectrometry to show that the RNA helicase Dbp7 is key player during early 60S ribosomal assembly. Dbp7 regulates a series of events driving compaction of domain V/VI in early pre60S ribosomal particles.

    • Gerald Ryan R. Aquino
    • , Philipp Hackert
    •  & Markus T. Bohnsack

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The molecular events underlying the assembly and maturation of the early pre-60S particles during eukaryotic ribosome synthesis are not well understood. Here, the authors combine yeast genetics and biochemical experiments to characterise the functions of two important players of eukaryotic ribosome biogenesis, the box C/D snoRNP snR190 and the helicase Dbp7, which both interact. They show that the snR190 snoRNA acts as a RNA chaperone that assists the structuring of the 25S rRNA during the maturation of early pre-60S particles and that Dbp7 is important for facilitating remodeling events in the peptidyl transferase center region of the 25S rRNAs during the maturation of early pre-60S particles.

    • Mariam Jaafar
    • , Julia Contreras
    •  & Anthony K. Henras

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Functional RNA secondary structure is important for the pre-mRNA processing including splicing, cleavage and polyadenylation, and RNA editing. Here the authors present a catalog of conserved long-range RNA structures in the human transcriptome by defining pairs of conserved complementary regions (PCCR) in pre-aligned evolutionarily conserved regions.

    • Svetlana Kalmykova
    • , Marina Kalinina
    •  & Dmitri Pervouchine

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Determining dynamic ensembles of biomolecules is still challenging. Here the authors present an approach for rapid RNA ensemble determination that combines RNA structure prediction tools and NMR residual dipolar coupling data and use it to determine atomistic ensemble models for a variety of RNAs.

    • Honglue Shi
    • , Atul Rangadurai
    •  & Hashim M. Al-Hashimi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    G-quadruplexes (G4s) are secondary structures that can form in both DNA and RNA from guanine-rich sequences which are enriched in untranslated regions (UTRs). Here, Lee et al. find that putative G4-forming sequences are evolutionarily constrained, enriched for RNA-binding protein interactions and enriched for disease genetic associations.

    • David S. M. Lee
    • , Louis R. Ghanem
    •  & Yoseph Barash

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pre-ribosomes undergo numerous structural rearrangements during their assembly. Here the authors identify the binding sites of three essential RNA helicases on pre-ribosomal particles, enabling them to provide insights into the structural and compositional changes that occur during biogenesis of the large ribosomal subunit.

    • Lukas Brüning
    • , Philipp Hackert
    •  & Markus T. Bohnsack

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Roquin targets are known to contain two types of sequence-structure motifs, the constitutive and the alternative decay elements (CDE and ADE). Here, the authors describe a linear Roquin binding element (LBE) also involved in target recognition, and show that Roquin binding affects the translation of a subset of targeted mRNAs.

    • Katharina Essig
    • , Nina Kronbeck
    •  & Vigo Heissmeyer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mitochondrial genome, being compressed to 16 kb, is an attractive model system to investigate how RNA-binding proteins chaperone mRNA lifecycles. Here the authors use RNase footprinting and PAR-CLIP to show that the LRPPRC–SLIRP complex stabilizes mRNA structures to expose sites required for translation and polyadenylation.

    • Stefan J. Siira
    • , Henrik Spåhr
    •  & Aleksandra Filipovska

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ribosome biogenesis is a dynamic process that involves the ordered assembly of ribosomal proteins and numerous RNA structural rearrangements. Here the authors apply ChemModSeq, a high-throughput RNA structure probing method, to quantitatively measure changes in RNA flexibility during the nucleolar stages of 60S assembly in yeast.

    • Elena Burlacu
    • , Fredrik Lackmann
    •  & Sander Granneman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ribosomes assemble through the hierarchical addition of proteins to a ribosomal RNA scaffold. Here the authors use three-color single-molecule FRET to show how the dynamics of the rRNA dictate the order in which multiple proteins assemble on the 5′ domain of the E. coli 16S rRNA.

    • Sanjaya C. Abeysirigunawardena
    • , Hajin Kim
    •  & Sarah A. Woodson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Eukaryotic ribosomal proteins contain nuclear localization signals (NLSs) that their bacterial counterparts lack. Here the authors compare homologous proteins from bacterial and eukaryotic ribosomes to show how NLSs could emerge in the course of evolution, and use this knowledge to identify novel NLSs.

    • Sergey Melnikov
    • , Adam Ben-Shem
    •  & Marat Yusupov

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