RNA Chaperones, RNA Annealers and RNA Helicases

RNA chaperones, RNA annealers and RNA helicases.

RNA molecules face difficulties when folding into their native structures. In the cell, proteins can assist RNAs in reaching their functionally active states by binding and stabilizing a specific structure or, in a quite opposite way, by interacting in a non-specific manner. These proteins can either facilitate RNA-RNA interactions in a reaction termed RNA annealing, or they can resolve non-fun...

RNA helicases in RNA decay

RNA molecules have the tendency to fold into complex structures or to associate with complementary RNAs that exoribonucleases have difficulties processing or degrading. Therefore, degradosomes in bacteria and organelles as well as exosomes in eukaryotes have teamed-up with RNA helicases. Whereas bacterial degradosomes are associated with RNA helicases from the DEAD-box family, the exosomes and ...

RNA helicases

Similar to proteins, RNA molecules must fold into the correct conformation and associate with protein complexes in order to be functional within a cell. RNA helicases rearrange RNA secondary structure and RNA-protein interactions in an ATP-dependent reaction, performing crucial functions in all aspects of RNA metabolism. In prokaryotes, RNA helicase activity is associated with roles in housekee...

RNA chaperones and the RNA folding problem.

Functional and structural inter-relationships of RNA and proteins in the execution and control of biological processes such as RNA processing, RNA splicing, and translation are increasingly apparent. In this minireview, I present an RNA chaperone hypothesis, which fosters the view that constraints imposed by fundamental problems in the folding of RNA have profoundly influenced the nature of RNA...

RNA Isolation (Small RNA Extraction). Fatemeh Mehrpooyan*