Structural basis for interaction of a cotranslational chaperone with the eukaryotic ribosome

Cotranslational chaperones, ubiquitous in all living organisms, protect nascent polypeptides from aggregation and facilitate their de novo folding. Importantly, emerging data have also suggested that ribosome-associated cotranslational chaperones have active regulatory roles in modulating protein translation. By characterizing the structure of a type of eukaryotic cotranslational chaperone, the ribosome-associated complex (RAC) from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we show that RAC cross-links two ribosomal subunits, through a single long α-helix, to limit the predominant intersubunit rotation required for peptide elongation. We further demonstrate that any changes in the continuity, length or rigidity of this middle α-helix impair RAC function in vivo. Our results suggest a new mechanism in which RAC directly regulates protein translation by mechanically coupling cotranslational folding with the peptide-elongation cycle, and they lay the foundation for further exploration of regulatory roles of RAC in translation control.