MPS seminar Victoria DeRose

The influence of metal ions on RNA structure and catalysis

Thursday November 1, at 14:00, Kemicentrum Lecture hall B
Prof. Victoria DeRose, Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Oregon
Homepage Victoria DeRose

Ribonucleic acids (RNA) play critical roles in transferring genetic information. Although chemically similar to DNA, cellular RNA takes on a much more extensive repertoire of functions and structures, many of which are still in discovery.  One interesting property of certain RNAs is their ability to fold into structures that can catalyze chemical reactions.  RNA catalysis by these ribozymes has a small but critical role in biology, and the strategies used by this biomolecule to activate chemical reactions are under intense examination.  Our interest in this area is based on the observation that several known ribozymes require divalent cations (Mg2+ or a substitute) for their function, suggesting similarities to protein metalloenzymes.  Since RNA is a polyanion, cations are important for stabilizing folded structures.  Within this context, certain cation sites also appear to be critical to the chemical reaction.  This talk will present efforts 
to uncover the roles of specific metal ion sites in the phosphodiester bond cleavage reaction catalyzed by the hammerhead ribozyme, a catalytic RNA motif originally derived from plant viroids.   Structural methods including EPR (Electron Paramagnetic Resonance) and NMR spectroscopies, as well as biochemical approaches, have been applied to this problem.  The results from this work will 
be put into the broader context of the properties of metal ion sites in RNA.

All welcome!

Sofi Elmroth

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