Rational design of RNA constructs by adding flanking internal loops overcame crystal-growth defects, enabling X-ray diffraction analysis of the HDV RNA-editing substrate to 2.8 A resolution.
Enables structural studies of HDV RNA editing; leaves open whether loop-flanking generalizes to other RNAs.
RNA editing by mammalian ADAR1 (Adenosine Deaminase Acting on RNA) is required for the life cycle of the hepatitis delta virus (HDV). Editing extends the single viral open reading frame to yield two protein products of alternate length. ADARs are believed to recognize double-stranded RNA substrates via a ;structure-based' readout mechanism. Crystals of 10-mer duplexes representing the HDV RNA-editing site diffracted to 1.35 A resolution, but suffered from merohedral twinning and averaging of the base registry. Expansion of the construct to include two flanking 3 x 1 internal loops yielded crystals in the primitive tetragonal space group P4(1)2(1)2 or P4(3)2(1)2. X-ray diffraction data were collected to 2.8 A resolution, revealing a unit cell with parameters a = 62.5, c = 63.5 A. The crystallization and X-ray analysis of multiple forms of the HDV RNA-editing substrate, encounters with common RNA crystal-growth defects and a strategy to overcome these problems are reported.
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MacElrevey et al. (2005) studied this question.
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