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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Oct 21.
Published in final edited form as: Nature. 2008 Dec 18;456(7224):921–926. doi: 10.1038/nature07666

Figure 1. Crystal structure of T. thermophilus Ago bound to 5′-phosphorylated 21-nucleotide guide DNA and 20-nucleotide target RNA.

Figure 1

a, Sequence of the guide DNA-target RNA duplex. The traceable segments of the bases of the guide DNA and target RNA in the structure of the ternary complex are shown in red and blue, respectively. Disordered segments of the bases on both strands that cannot be traced are shown in grey. b, Stereo view of the 3.0 Å crystal structure of the Ago ternary complex. The Ago protein is colour-coded by domains (N in cyan, PAZ in magenta, Mid in orange and PIWI in green) and linkers (L1 and L2 in grey). The bound 21-nucleotide guide DNA is in red and traced for bases of the 1–10 and 19–21 segments, whereas the bound 20-nucleotide target RNA is in blue and traced for bases of the 1′ to 9′ segment. Backbone phosphorus atoms are in yellow. c, An alternate view of the complex.