研究・研究者
研究会・セミナー
| 演 題 | 「Urea Assisted RNA Unfolding: Mechanism and its Implications」 |
|---|---|
| 日 時 | 2014年06月23日(月) 16:00 |
| 講演者 | Deva Priyakumar准教授 (Center for Computational Natural Sciences and Bioinformatics, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad) |
| 場 所 | 分子科学研究所 研究棟2階 201号室 |
| 概 要 | Urea is a chemical denaturant that is often used to investigate protein stability and folding. In recent years, it has been shown that urea can denature RNA molecules and is extremely valuable in studying tertiary interactions in RNA. Our attempts to study the atomistic mechanism of the unfolding process revealed the ability of urea to form hydrogen bonds and surprisingly stacking interactions with nucleobases. Based on high-level quantum chemical calculations and molecular dynamics simulations on model systems, we propose that urea along with water molecules form cage like structures, which trap nucleobases and stabilize them in their extrahelical states. Having shown that urea can form hydrogen bonding and stacking, an important property of nucleobases, we examined the ability of urea to take part in base pairing within nucleic acid structures. The talk will discuss the atomistic details of the ability of urea to destabilize nucleic acid structures, and its capability to potentially mimic nucleobases in DNA duplexes. |
| お問合せ先 | 江原正博、斉藤真司 |
