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RNA Nanostructures pp 135–149Cite as

Design and Crystallography of Self-Assembling RNA Nanostructures

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Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 1632))

Abstract

Biological RNA architectures are composed of autonomously folding modules which can be tailored as building blocks for the construction of RNA nanostructures. Designed base pair interactions allow complex nano-objects to self-assemble from simple RNA motifs. X-ray crystallography plays an important role in both the design and analysis of such RNA nanostructures. Here, we describe methods for the design and X-ray crystallographic structure analysis of an RNA square and two different triangles, which self-assemble from short oligonucleotides and serve as a platform for building functional nano-sized nucleic acid architectures.

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Acknowledgment

The research outlined here was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health, grant R01 AI72012, and the UCSD Academic Senate, grant No. RM069B. M. A. B. was supported by a GAANN fellowship from the US Department of Education. Instrumentation at the UCSD Biomolecule Crystallography Facility was acquired with funding from the National Institutes of Health, grant OD011957. Use of the Advanced Photon Source for X-ray diffraction data collection was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. W-31-109-Eng-38. Use of the IMCA-CAT beamline 17-ID at the Advanced Photon was supported by the companies of the Industrial Macromolecular Crystallography Association through a contract with the Center for Advanced Radiation Sources at the University of Chicago.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA

    Mark A. Boerneke & Thomas Hermann

  2. Center for Drug Discovery Innovation, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA

    Thomas Hermann

Authors
  1. Mark A. Boerneke
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  2. Thomas Hermann
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas Hermann .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Leidos Biomedical Research, Frederick, Maryland, USA

    Eckart Bindewald

  2. RNA Structure and Design Section, RNA Biology Laboratory, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Frederick, Maryland, USA

    Bruce A. Shapiro

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Boerneke, M.A., Hermann, T. (2017). Design and Crystallography of Self-Assembling RNA Nanostructures. In: Bindewald, E., Shapiro, B. (eds) RNA Nanostructures . Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1632. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7138-1_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7138-1_9

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  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-7137-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-7138-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Protocols

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