TY - JOUR
T1 - Bridging the solution divide
T2 - comprehensive structural analyses of dynamic RNA, DNA, and protein assemblies by small-angle X-ray scattering
AU - Rambo, Robert P.
AU - Tainer, John A.
N1 - Funding Information:
We sincerely thank Alan Fersht and Martin Blackledge for providing material for Figure 3 . We thank Jan Lipfert, SIBYLS staff members G Hura and M Hammel for discussions and RT Batey for SAM-I. The authors acknowledge salary and other support for SAXS technologies at the SIBYLS beamline (BL12.3.1) of the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory by United States Department of Energy (DOE) program Integrated Diffraction Analysis Technologies (IDAT) under contract DE-AC02-05CH11231, the Molecular Assemblies: Genes and Genomes Integrated Efficiently (MAGGIE) project (DOE; DE-FG0207ER64326), and National Cancer Institute Structural Cell Biology of DNA Repair Machines grant CA92584.
PY - 2010/2
Y1 - 2010/2
N2 - Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is changing how we perceive biological structures, because it reveals dynamic macromolecular conformations and assemblies in solution. SAXS information captures thermodynamic ensembles, enhances static structures detailed by high-resolution methods, uncovers commonalities among diverse macromolecules, and helps define biological mechanisms. SAXS-based experiments on RNA riboswitches and ribozymes and on DNA-protein complexes including DNA-PK and p53 discover flexibilities that better define structure-function relationships. Furthermore, SAXS results suggest conformational variation is a general functional feature of macromolecules. Thus, accurate structural analyses will require a comprehensive approach that assesses both flexibility, as seen by SAXS, and detail, as determined by X-ray crystallography and NMR. Here, we review recent SAXS computational tools, technologies, and applications to nucleic acids and related structures.
AB - Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is changing how we perceive biological structures, because it reveals dynamic macromolecular conformations and assemblies in solution. SAXS information captures thermodynamic ensembles, enhances static structures detailed by high-resolution methods, uncovers commonalities among diverse macromolecules, and helps define biological mechanisms. SAXS-based experiments on RNA riboswitches and ribozymes and on DNA-protein complexes including DNA-PK and p53 discover flexibilities that better define structure-function relationships. Furthermore, SAXS results suggest conformational variation is a general functional feature of macromolecules. Thus, accurate structural analyses will require a comprehensive approach that assesses both flexibility, as seen by SAXS, and detail, as determined by X-ray crystallography and NMR. Here, we review recent SAXS computational tools, technologies, and applications to nucleic acids and related structures.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.sbi.2009.12.015
DO - 10.1016/j.sbi.2009.12.015
M3 - Review article
C2 - 20097063
AN - SCOPUS:77749311718
SN - 0959-440X
VL - 20
SP - 128
EP - 137
JO - Current Opinion in Structural Biology
JF - Current Opinion in Structural Biology
IS - 1
ER -