RNA tertiary interactions in the large ribosomal subunit: The A-minor motif

By P. Nissen, J. Ippolito, N. Ban, P. Moore, T. Steitz. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2001

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Analysis of the 2.4-Å resolution crystal structure of the large ribosomal subunit from Haloarcula marismortui reveals the existence of an abundant and ubiquitous structural motif that stabilizes RNA tertiary and quaternary structures. This motif is termed the A-minor motif, because it involves the insertion of the smooth, minor groove edges of adenines into the minor groove of neighboring helices, preferentially at C-G base pairs, where they form hydrogen bonds with one or both of the 2′ OHs of those pairs. A-minor motifs stabilize contacts between RNA helices, interactions between loops and helices, and the conformations of junctions and tight turns. The interactions between the 3′ terminal adenine of tRNAs bound in either the A site or the P site with 23S rRNA are examples of functionally significant A-minor interactions. The A-minor motif is by far the most abundant tertiary structure interaction in the large ribosomal subunit; 186 adenines in 23S and 5S rRNA participate, 68 of which are conserved. It may prove to be the universally most important long-range interaction in large RNA structures.

Subfields: Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8414409a961110c60a8cd6b64c54dacad5662dcc

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Citations in the corpus

Anticodon-like loop-mediated dimerization in the crystal structures of HDV-like CPEB3 ribozymes (2023, background): “Despite CPEB3 ribozyme dimerization, the type I A-minor interaction (Doherty et al. 2001; Nissen et al. 2001) involving A62 and the P3 penultimate bp (C18-G28) is observed (corresponding to A77sC18wcG29 in HDV (PDB ID: 1drz)) whereas the type II that would be expected from the catalytic site assembl”
The non-Watson-Crick base pairs and their associated isostericity matrices. (2002, background): “Furthermore, the cis sugar edge/ sugar edge interaction often occurs in combination with the trans sugar edge/sugar edge pair of the frequent and versatile recognition motif comprised of adjacent cis and trans sugar edge/sugar edge base pairs (3,27).”
Studies on the role of helix 69 of 23S rRNA in the factor-dependent stages of translation initiation, elongation, and termination (2011, background): “Prominent among those interactions are tetraloop-tetraloop receptor interactions and ribose zippers (Cate et al. 1996a), A-minor motifs (Nissen et al. 2001; Battle and Doudna 2002) as well as different types of coaxial stacks (Kim et al. 1974) of the helices (Noller 2005; Holbrook 2008).”
The kink‐turn: a new RNA secondary structure motif (2001, background): “A98 stacks beneath A80 and pairs with G79, giving rise to a cross-strand adenosine stack and a type I A-minor interaction (Nissen et al., 2001).”
An RNA-centric historical narrative around the Protein Data Bank (2021, background): “Following time, these structures are highlighted: (1) RNA viruses, 1BMV (39); (2) class I tRNA synthetase complex, 1GSG (214); (3) tRNA, a class II tRNA with a long variable loop, complexed with its specific synthetase, 1SER (215); (4) class II tRNA synthetase complex, 1ASY (216); (5) MS2 RNA coat p”
3DNA: a versatile, integrated software system for the analysis, rebuilding and visualization of three-dimensional nucleic-acid structures (2008, background): “The selected viewpoints highlight the very different types of interactions of adenine with the minor-groove edges of the G–C pairs in the two pentaplets, that is, distinct types of A-minor motif”