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T-box RNA gets boxed

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Bacterial T-boxes are regulatory mRNA regions that control the transcription or translation of factors involved in amino acid supply. T-boxes act by directly binding to non-aminoacylated tRNA in response to amino acid starvation. Three studies now capture three-dimensional structures of tRNA–T-box complexes and reveal a set of RNA features that are required for the recognition of specific tRNAs and modulation of gene expression.

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Fig. 1: Transcriptional control mechanism and overall architecture of T-boxes.
Fig. 2: Three-dimensional structures of T-boxes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Jacob W. Weaver & Alexander Serganov

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  1. Jacob W. Weaver
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  2. Alexander Serganov
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Correspondence to Alexander Serganov.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Weaver, J.W., Serganov, A. T-box RNA gets boxed. Nat Struct Mol Biol 26, 1081–1083 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-019-0340-9

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