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Adaptation of mRNA structure to control protein folding
Guilhem Faure1, Aleksey Y Ogurtsov1, Svetlana A Shabalina1
1a National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine , National Institutes of Health , Bethesda , MD , USA.
RNA Biology
|July 20, 2017
Summary
Messenger RNA (mRNA) structure influences protein folding. Evolution fine-tunes mRNA structure, linking mRNA and protein folding through a double encoding mechanism.
Area of Science:
- Molecular Biology
- Structural Biology
- Bioinformatics
Background:
- Messenger RNA (mRNA) secondary structures are known to influence various cellular processes.
- The relationship between mRNA structure and the protein folding it encodes is an area of ongoing investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the link between mRNA structure and protein domain compactness.
- To explore the role of mRNA structure in protein folding.
- To determine if mRNA structure is under evolutionary selection for optimal protein folding.
Main Methods:
- Comparative analysis of mRNA and protein structures.
- Examination of mRNA folding energy changes in relation to amino acid replacements during evolution.
Main Results:
- Highly structured mRNAs were found to encode compact protein domains.
- Evidence suggests that specific mRNA structural elements are responsible for controlling protein folding.
- Changes in mRNA folding energy correlate with amino acid substitutions over evolutionary time.
Conclusions:
- mRNA structure plays a crucial role in dictating protein domain structure and folding.
- mRNA sequences appear to be under selective pressure to optimize protein folding through structural fine-tuning.
- The study reinforces the concept of a dual encoding within mRNA, specifying both protein sequence and its folding properties.
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