Abstract
Synthetic nanostructures consisting of biomacromolecules such as nucleic acids have been constructed using bottom-up approaches1,2. In particular, Watson–Crick base pairing has been used to construct a variety of two- and three-dimensional DNA nanostructures3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Here, we show that RNA and the ribosomal protein L7Ae can form a nanostructure shaped like an equilateral triangle that consists of three proteins bound to an RNA scaffold. The construction of the complex relies on the proteins binding to kink-turn (K-turn) motifs in the RNA11,12,13, which allows the RNA to bend by ∼60° at three positions to form a triangle. Functional RNA–protein complexes constructed with this approach could have applications in nanomedicine14,15 and synthetic biology14,16,17,18.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank R. Furushima, M. Sekiya and Y. Kodama (Japan Science and Technology Agency) for analysis and purification of Tri-RNPs, Y. Fujita (Kyoto University) and M. Takinoue (The University of Tokyo) for discussions, and A. Huttenhofer (Innsbruck Medical University) and T.S. Rozhdestvensky (University of Muenster) for providing the L7Ae plasmid. This work was supported by the JST International Cooperative Research Project. Part of the work was supported by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (09A02021a).
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H.O., T.K., T.I. and H.S. designed the project. H.O., T.I., S.H.Y. and H.S. performed AFM. H.O., R.K. and K.E. performed RNP biochemical assays. H.O., S.H.Y., K.T., T.I. and H.S. evaluated the experimental results. H.O., T.I. and H.S. wrote the manuscript.
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Ohno, H., Kobayashi, T., Kabata, R. et al. Synthetic RNA–protein complex shaped like an equilateral triangle. Nature Nanotech 6, 116–120 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.268
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.268
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