A Method for Helical RNA Global Structure Determination in Solution Using Small Angle X-ray Scattering and NMR Measurements

摘要

We report a “top-down” method that uses mainly duplexes' global orientations and overall molecular dimension and shape restraints, which were extracted from experimental NMR and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) data respectively, to determine global architectures of RNA molecules consisting of mostly A-form like duplexes. The method is implemented in the G2G (from Global measurement to Global Structure) toolkit of programs. We demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the method by determining the global structure of a 71-nucleotide RNA using experimental data. The backbone root-mean-square-deviation (RMSD) of the ensemble of the calculated global structures relative to the X-ray crystal structure using the experimental data is 3.0 ± 0.3 Å, and the RMSD is only 2.5 ± 0.2 Å for the three duplexes that were orientation-restrained during the calculation. The global structure simplifies interpretation of multi-dimensional nuclear Overhauser spectra for high resolution structure determination. The potential general application of the method for RNA structure determination is discussed.