Abstract
Recent advances in multi-wavelength analytical ultracentrifugation (MWL-AUC) combine the power of an exquisitely sensitive hydrodynamic-based separation technique with the added dimension of spectral separation. This added dimension has opened up new doors to much improved characterization of multiple, interacting species in solution. When applied to structural investigations of RNA, MWL-AUC can precisely report on the hydrodynamic radius and the overall shape of an RNA molecule by enabling precise measurements of its sedimentation and diffusion coefficients and identify the stoichiometry of interacting components based on spectral decomposition. Information provided in this chapter will allow an investigator to design experiments for probing ion and/or protein-induced global conformational changes of an RNA molecule and exploit spectral differences between proteins and RNA to characterize their interactions in a physiological solution environment.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Gesteland RF, Cech TR, Atkins JF (2006) The RNA world, vol 43. Cold Spring Harbor Press, New York
Fresco JR (1998) RNA structure and function, vol 35. Cold Spring Harbor Press, New York
Dethoff EA, Chugh J, Mustoe AM, Al-Hashimi HM (2012) Functional complexity and regulation through RNA dynamics. Nature 482(7385):322–330
Mustoe AM, Brooks CL, Al-Hashimi HM (2014) Hierarchy of RNA functional dynamics. Annu Rev Biochem 83:441–466
Mitra S (2009) Using analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) to measure global conformational changes accompanying equilibrium tertiary folding of RNA molecules. Methods Enzymol 469:209–236
Brautigam CA, Wakeman CA, Winkler WC (2009) Methods for analysis of ligand-induced RNA conformational changes. Methods Mol Biol 540:77–95
Mitra S (2014) Detecting RNA tertiary folding by sedimentation velocity analytical ultracentrifugation. Methods Mol Biol 1086:265–288
Chaires JB, Dean WL, Le HT, Trent JO (2015) Hydrodynamic models of G-Quadruplex structures. Methods Enzymol 562:287–304
Kieft JS, Costantino DA, Filbin ME, Hammond J, Pfingsten JS (2007) Structural methods for studying IRES function. Methods Enzymol 430:333–371
Takamoto K, He Q, Morris S, Chance MR, Brenowitz M (2002) Monovalent cations mediate formation of native tertiary structure of the Tetrahymena thermophila ribozyme. Nat Struct Biol 9(12):928–933
Chillon I, Marcia M, Legiewicz M, Liu F, Somarowthu S, Pyle AM (2015) Native purification and analysis of long RNAs. Methods Enzymol 558:3–37
Wang X, Xi W, Toomey S, Chiang YC, Hasek J, Laue TM, Denis CL (2016) Stoichiometry and change of the mRNA closed-loop factors as translating ribosomes transit from initiation to elongation. PLoS One 11(3):e0150616
Luque D, Mata CP, Gonzalez-Camacho F, Gonzalez JM, Gomez-Blanco J, Alfonso C, Rivas G, Havens WM, Kanematsu S, Suzuki N, Ghabrial SA, Trus BL, Caston JR (2016) Heterodimers as the structural unit of the T=1 capsid of the fungal double-stranded RNA Rosellinia necatrix quadrivirus 1. J Virol 90(24):11220–11230
Patel TR, Chojnowski G, Astha KA, McKenna SA, Bujnicki JM (2017) Structural studies of RNA-protein complexes: a hybrid approach involving hydrodynamics, scattering, and computational methods. Methods 118-119:146–162
Zhang J, Pearson JZ, Gorbet GE, Colfen H, Germann MW, Brinton MA, Demeler B (2017) Spectral and hydrodynamic analysis of West Nile virus RNA-protein interactions by multiwavelength sedimentation velocity in the analytical ultracentrifuge. Anal Chem 89(1):862–870
Wong CJ, Launer-Felty K, Cole JL (2011) Analysis of PKR-RNA interactions by sedimentation velocity. Methods Enzymol 488:59–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-381268-1.00003-3
Berke IC, Modis Y (2012) MDA5 cooperatively forms dimers and ATP-sensitive filaments upon binding double-stranded RNA. EMBO J 31(7):1714–1726
Mayo CB, Wong CJ, Lopez PE, Lary JW, Cole JL (2016) Activation of PKR by short stem-loop RNAs containing single-stranded arms. RNA 22(7):1065–1075
Pearson JZ, Krause F, Haffke D, Demeler B, Schilling K, Colfen H (2015) Next-generation AUC adds a spectral dimension: development of multiwavelength detectors for the analytical ultracentrifuge. Methods Enzymol 562:1–26
Pearson J, Walter J, Peukert W, Colfen H (2018) Advanced multiwavelength detection in analytical ultracentrifugation. Anal Chem 90(2):1280–1291
Colfen H, Laue TM, Wohlleben W, Schilling K, Karabudak E, Langhorst BW, Brookes E, Dubbs B, Zollars D, Rocco M, Demeler B (2010) The open AUC project. Eur Biophys J 39(3):347–359
Gorbet GE, Pearson JZ, Demeler AK, Colfen H, Demeler B (2015) Next-generation AUC: analysis of multiwavelength analytical ultracentrifugation data. Methods Enzymol 562:27–47
Johnson CN, Gorbet GE, Ramsower H, Urquidi J, Brancaleon L, Demeler B (2018) Multi-wavelength analytical ultracentrifugation of human serum albumin complexed with porphyrin. Eur Biophys J 47(7):789–797
Demeler B, Gorbet GE (2016) Analytical ultracentrifugation data analysis with UltraScan-III. In: Uchiyama S, Arisaka F, Stafford W, Laue T (eds) Analytical ultracentrifugation. Springer, Cham, pp 119–143
Byron O, Nischang I, Patel TR (2018) European biophysics journal. In: Byron O, Nischang I, Patel TR (eds) Special issue: 23rd international analytical ultracentrifugation workshop and symposium, AUC 2017, vol 693. Springer International Publishing, Cham
Fujita H (1975) Foundations of ultracentrifugal analysis. Wiley, New York
Philo JS (2000) A method for directly fitting the time derivative of sedimentation velocity data and an alternative algorithm for calculating sedimentation coefficient distribution functions. Anal Biochem 279(2):151–163
Stafford WF 3rd (1994) Boundary analysis in sedimentation velocity experiments. Methods Enzymol 240:478–501
Laue TM, Stafford WF 3rd (1999) Modern applications of analytical ultracentrifugation. Annu Rev Biophys Biomol Struct 28:75–100
Stafford WF 3rd (1992) Boundary analysis in sedimentation transport experiments: a procedure for obtaining sedimentation coefficient distributions using the time derivative of the concentration profile. Anal Biochem 203(2):295–301
Correia JJ, Stafford WF (2015) Sedimentation velocity: a classical perspective. Methods Enzymol 562:49–80
Costantino D, Kieft JS (2005) A preformed compact ribosome-binding domain in the cricket paralysis-like virus IRES RNAs. RNA 11(3):332–343
Tanford C (1961) Physical chemistry of macromolecules. Wiley, New York
Cantor CR, Schimmel PR (1980) Ultracentrifugation. In: Bartlett AC (ed) Biophysical chemistry, Part II: techniques for the study of biological structure and function, vol II. W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco
Scott DJ, Schuck P (2005) A brief introduction to the analytical ultracentrifugation of proteins for beginners. Analytical ultracentrifugation: techniques and methods. Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, UK
Uchiyama SA (2016) Important and essential theoretical aspects of AUC. Analytical ultracentrifugation. Springer, Tokyo
Demeler B, Brookes E, Wang R, Schirf V, Kim CA (2010) Characterization of reversible associations by sedimentation velocity with UltraScan. Macromol Biosci 10(7):775–782
MacGregor IK, Anderson AL, Laue TM (2004) Fluorescence detection for the XLI analytical ultracentrifuge. Biophys Chem 108(1–3):165–185
Lawson CLH, Hanson RJ (1974) Solving least squares problems. Automatic computation. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs
Brookes E, Cao W, Demeler B (2010) A two-dimensional spectrum analysis for sedimentation velocity experiments of mixtures with heterogeneity in molecular weight and shape. Eur Biophys J 39(3):405–414
Brookes E, Demeler B (2007) Parsimonious regularization using genetic algorithms applied to the analysis of analytical ultracentrifugation experiments. In: GECCO ACM proceedings of the 9th annual conference on genetic and evolutionary computation, pp 361–368
Demeler B, Brookes E (2008) Monte Carlo analysis of sedimentation experiments. Colloid Polym Sci 268(2):129–137
Beckert B, Masquida B (2011) Synthesis of RNA by in vitro transcription. Methods Mol Biol 703:29–41
Shcherbakova I, Gupta S, Chance M, Brenowitz M (2004) Monovalent ion-mediated folding of the Tetrahymena thermophila ribozyme. J Mol Biol 342(5):1431–1442
Mitra S, Laederach A, Golden BL, Altman RB, Brenowitz M (2011) RNA molecules with conserved catalytic cores but variable peripheries fold along unique energetically optimized pathways. RNA 17(8):1589–1603
Shcherbakova I, Mitra S (2009) Hydroxyl-radical footprinting to probe equilibrium changes in RNA tertiary structure. Methods Enzymol 468:31–46
Kwok L, Shcherbakova I, Lamb J, Park H, Andresen K, Smith H, Brenowitz M, Pollack L (2006) Concordant exploration of the kinetics of RNA folding from global and local perspectives. J Mol Biol 355(2):282–293
Williams TL, Gorbet GE, Demeler B (2018) Multi-speed sedimentation velocity simulations with UltraScan-III. Eur Biophys J 47(7):815–823
Cao W, Demeler B (2008) Modeling analytical ultracentrifugation experiments with an adaptive space-time finite element solution for multicomponent reacting systems. Biophys J 95(1):54–65
Cao W, Demeler B (2005) Modeling analytical ultracentrifugation experiments with an adaptive space-time finite element solution of the Lamm equation. Biophys J 89(3):1589–1602
Philo JS (2006) Improved methods for fitting sedimentation coefficient distributions derived by time-derivative techniques. Anal Biochem 354(2):238–246
Schuck P (2003) On the analysis of protein self-association by sedimentation velocity analytical ultracentrifugation. Anal Biochem 320(1):104–124
Brautigam CA (2011) Using Lamm-equation modeling of sedimentation velocity data to determine the kinetic and thermodynamic properties of macromolecular interactions. Methods 54(1):4–15
Behlke J, Ristau O (1997) Molecular mass determination by sedimentation velocity experiments and direct fitting of the concentration profiles. Biophys J 72(1):428–434
Philo JS (1997) An improved function for fitting sedimentation velocity data for low-molecular-weight solutes. Biophys J 72(1):435–444
Schuck P, MacPhee CE, Howlett GJ (1998) Determination of sedimentation coefficients for small peptides. Biophys J 74(1):466–474
Brown PH, Schuck P (2008) A new adaptive grid-size algorithm for the simulation of sedimentation velocity profiles in analytical ultracentrifugation. Comput Phys Commun 178(2):105–120
Sherwood PJ Stafford WF (2016) SEDANAL: model-dependent and model-independent analysis of sedimentation data. In: Uchiyama S, Arisaka F, Stafford W, Laue T (eds) Analytical ultracentrifugation. Springer, Tokyo, pp 81–102
Memon S, Riedel M, Janetzko F, Demeler B, Gorbet G, Marru S, Grimshaw A, Gunathilake L, Singh R, Attig N, Lippert T (2014) Advancements of the UltraScan scientific gateway for open standards-based cyberinfrastructures. Concurr Comput Pract Exp 26(13):2280–2291
Pierce M, Marru S, Demeler B, Singh R, Gorbet G (2014) The apache airavata application programming interface: overview and evaluation with the UltraScan science gateway. In: 9th gateway computing environments workshop (GCE 2014), New Orleans, LA, USA, 2014. IEEE Press, Piscataway
Kieft JS, Batey RT (2004) A general method for rapid and nondenaturing purification of RNAs. RNA 10(6):988–995
Takamoto K, Das R, He Q, Doniach S, Brenowitz M, Herschlag D, Chance M (2004) Principles of RNA compaction: insights from the equilibrium folding pathway of the P4-P6 RNA domain in monovalent cations. J Mol Biol 343(5):1195–1206
Sclavi B, Sullivan M, Chance MR, Brenowitz M, Woodson SA (1998) RNA folding at millisecond intervals by synchrotron hydroxyl radical footprinting. Science 279(5358):1940–1943
Chauhan S, Woodson SA (2008) Tertiary interactions determine the accuracy of RNA folding. J Am Chem Soc 130(4):1296–1303
Nelson TG, Ramsay GD, Perugini MA (2016) Fluorescence detection system. In: Uchiyama S, Arisaka F, Stafford W, Laue T (eds) Analytical ultracentrifugation. Springer, Tokyo, pp 39–61
Pan J, Woodson SA (1998) Folding intermediates of a self-splicing RNA: mispairing of the catalytic core. J Mol Biol 280(4):597–609
Wilkinson KA, Merino EJ, Weeks KM (2006) Selective 2′-hydroxyl acylation analyzed by primer extension (SHAPE): quantitative RNA structure analysis at single nucleotide resolution. Nat Protoc 1(3):1610–1616
Grohman J, Del Campo M, Bhaskaran H, Tijerina P, Lambowitz A, Russell R (2007) Probing the mechanisms of DEAD-box proteins as general RNA chaperones: the C-terminal domain of CYT-19 mediates general recognition of RNA. Biochemistry 46(11):3013–3022
Carey MF, Peterson CL, Smale ST (2013) The RNase protection assay. Cold Spring Harb Protoc 2013(3):pdb.prot071910
Herschlag D, Cech TR (1990) Catalysis of RNA cleavage by the Tetrahymena thermophila ribozyme. 1. Kinetic description of the reaction of an RNA substrate complementary to the active site. Biochemistry 29(44):10159–10171
Russell R, Das R, Suh H, Travers KJ, Laederach A, Engelhardt MA, Herschlag D (2006) The paradoxical behavior of a highly structured misfolded intermediate in RNA folding. J Mol Biol 363(2):531–544
Wan Y, Mitchell D 3rd, Russell R (2009) Catalytic activity as a probe of native RNA folding. Methods Enzymol 468:195–218
Mitra S, Brenowitz M (2008) Metal ions and RNA folding kinetics. In: Hud NV (ed) Nucleic-acid metal ion interactions. Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, pp 221–265
Hud NV (2008) Nucleic acid-metal ion interactions. Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge
Chen C, Mitra S, Jonikas M, Martin J, Brenowitz M, Laederach A (2013) Understanding the role of three-dimensional topology in determining the folding intermediates of group I introns. Biophys J 104(6):1326–1337
Acknowledgments
S.M. is grateful to the Chemistry Department of New York University to host him as a faculty during the preparation of this manuscript. The Twort intron work described here was originally funded by 1RO1-GM085130 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health to Prof. Michael D. Brenowitz at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. B.D. wishes to credit NIH-NIGMS grant RO1-120600 and the Canada Research Chairs program for financial support of this work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Mitra, S., Demeler, B. (2020). Probing RNA–Protein Interactions and RNA Compaction by Sedimentation Velocity Analytical Ultracentrifugation. In: Arluison, V., Wien, F. (eds) RNA Spectroscopy. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2113. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0278-2_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0278-2_19
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-0277-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-0278-2
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols