The secondary structure of E. coli ribosomes and ribosomal RNA's: a spectrophotometric approach

The thermal denaturation spectra of E. coli 50s and 30s ribosomal sub units and of their isolated RNA's were studied over the wavelength range of 2300-3000 Angstrom. It was possible to fit the experimental denaturation spectra with super positions of the reference spectra for denaturation of A - U and G - C base pairs derived from model polyribonucleotides. The coefficients of these linear combinations were used to calculate the fractions of A - U and G - C base pairs in the samples. It was found that the helical content of the RNA's inside the subunits is smaller than that of the isolated RNA's, thus suggesting that proteins may affect the secondary structure of RNA in the ribosome.