Abstract

Riboswitches are RNA -based regulation elements that modulate gene expression at the level of transcription or translation. By binding of small molecular weight metabolites, they can turn gene expression OFF or ON. In the talk, biophysical studies and simulations will be presented to delineate the molecular mechanism of riboswitches. For translational riboswitches, it is shown that three state mechanism are essential to maintain riboswitch regulation over a broad temperature range (Reining et al., 2013). For transcriptional riboswitches, the kinetic requirements to couple mRNA synthesis, RNA refolding and ligand binding are delineated (Helmling et al., 2017).

A. Reining, S. Nozinovic, K. Schlepckow, F. Buhr, B. Fürtig, H. Schwalbe (2013) Three-state mechanism couples ligand and temperature sensing in riboswitches. Nature 499, 355-359.

C. Helmling, A. Wacker, M.T. Wolfinger, I.L. Hofacker, M. Hengesbach, B. Fürtig, H. Schwalbe (2017) NMR structural profiling of transcriptional intermediates reveals riboswitch regulation by metastable RNA conformations. J. Am. Chem. Soc.139, 2647-2656.