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RNA and DNA in living cells measured using PELDOR

2 May 2011. The tertiary structure and conformational dynamics of ribonucleic acids (RNAs) are esssential for their function as biological catalysts, regulators and structural scaffolds. Pulsed electron–electron double-resonance (PELDOR) spectroscopy can provide important information on both the structure and the dynamics. A team of Frankfurt scientists lead by Thomas Prisner and including three CEF reserach groups has applied PELDOR to map for the first time the global structure of nucleic acids inside Xenopus laevis oocytes. Their measurements published in the journal Angewandte Chemie on 19 April 2011 show that the distances of in vitro and in vivo are the same which implies the existence of stable overall conformations of the hairpin RNA and the neomycin-sensing riboswitch studied. PhD student and first author Ivan Krstić  received a 2011 JEOL student prize lecture award by the ESR Spectroscopy Group of the UK Royal Society of Chemistry   for his work . 

Link to publication in Angewandte Chemie

 

Contact

Thomas Prisner
Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
Goethe University Frankfurt
Max-von-Laue-Str. 7
60438  Frankfurt am Main, Germany
E-mail: prisner@chemie.uni-frankfurt.de
http://www.prisner.de/

 

Full reference
Ivan Krstić, Robert Hänsel, Olga Romainczyk, Joachim W. Engels, Volker Dötsch, Thomas F. Prisner (2011) Long-Range Distance Measurements on Nucleic Acids in Cells by Pulsed EPR Spectroscopy  . Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Article first published online: 19 APR 2011 . Early View (Online Version of Record published before inclusion in an issue) DOI: 10.1002/anie.201100886