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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 17, 2026

Monitoring Activation of the Antiviral Pattern Recognition Receptors RIG-I And PKR By Limited Protease Digestion and Native PAGE

Monitoring Activation of the Antiviral Pattern Recognition Receptors RIG-I And PKR By Limited Protease Digestion and Native PAGE

Published on: July 29, 2014

A structure-based model of RIG-I activation.

Daniel Kolakofsky¹, Eva Kowalinski, Stephen Cusack

¹Department of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine, University of Geneva School of Medicine, CMU, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland. daniel.kolakofsky@unige.ch

RNA (New York, N.Y.)

|November 3, 2012

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Recent crystal structures reveal how Retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) activates upon binding viral RNA. This provides key insights into innate immune receptor activation mechanisms against viral infections.

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Area of Science:

Structural Biology
Immunology
Virology

Background:

The innate immune system relies on pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) to detect pathogen-associated molecular patterns.
Retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) is a crucial PRR that senses viral RNA, initiating antiviral immune responses.

Purpose of the Study:

To elucidate the structural mechanisms underlying RIG-I activation by viral RNA.
To provide atomic-level insights into the interaction between RIG-I and its cognate ligands.

Main Methods:

High-resolution crystal structure determination of RIG-I.
Co-crystallization of RIG-I with double-stranded RNA (dsRNA).
Comparative structural analysis of different RIG-I:dsRNA complexes.

Main Results:

Detailed structural snapshots of RIG-I in both apo and RNA-bound states were obtained.
Key conformational changes in RIG-I upon dsRNA binding were identified.
The structural basis for RIG-I's specificity towards certain viral RNA structures was revealed.

Conclusions:

The reported crystal structures offer significant insights into the activation mechanism of RIG-I.
Understanding RIG-I activation is critical for developing novel antiviral therapies targeting innate immunity.