2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Engineerability of a functional ribonucleoprotein complex

Research Project

Project/Area Number	23550190
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Section	一般
Research Field	Chemistry related to living body
Research Institution	Tokyo Gakugei University
Principal Investigator	HARADA Kazuo 東京学芸大学, 教育学部, 教授 (00301169)
Project Period (FY)	2011 – 2013
Keywords	リボヌクレオタンパク質複合体 / λNタンパク質 / アンチターミネーション
Research Abstract	In order to understand the molecular basis for ribonucleoprotein (RNP) structure and function, we attempted the engineering of the interactions and the spatial organization of the N antitermination complex. Relatively small changes in the spatial orientation of the RNA site have been shown to result in large changes in antitermination activity. We found that it is possible to partially recover activity lost upon altering the orientation of the core HIV RRE site within the antitermination complex by simultaneously modifiyng the orientation of RNA elements and N protein domains. We also showed that optimization of the interaction of N protein with NusA and RNA polymerase lead to a partial recovery of antitermination activity. The results show that the spatial orientation of the core interaction within the antitermination complex can be engineered in a rational manner, demonstrating the engineerability of ribonucleoprotein complexes.

(4 results)