Nature Communications (Jan 2020)

Metal ions and sugar puckering balance single-molecule kinetic heterogeneity in RNA and DNA tertiary contacts

  • Fabio D. Steffen,
  • Mokrane Khier,
  • Danny Kowerko,
  • Richard A. Cunha,
  • Richard Börner,
  • Roland K. O. Sigel

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13683-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

Read online

Mobile group II introns function as ribozymes to splice and reinsert themselves into DNA, thereby colonizing new genomic regions. Here the authors use single-molecule FRET and molecular dynamics simulations to reveal a structural link between metal ion induced kinetic heterogeneity and the sugar puckers at the exon-intron binding interface.