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. 1975 Mar;2(3):373–381. doi: 10.1093/nar/2.3.373

The secondary structure of E. coli ribosomes and ribosomal RNA's: a spectrophotometric approach

A Araco 1, M Belli 1, C Giorgi 1, G Onori 1
PMCID: PMC342843  PMID: 1093140

Abstract

The thermal denaturation spectra of E. coli 50S and 30S ribosomal sub units and of their isolated RNA's were studied over the wavelength range of 2300-3000 Å.

It was possible to fit the experimental denaturation spectra with super positions of the reference spectra for denaturation of A - U and G - C base pairs derived from model polyribonucleotides. The coefficients of these linear combinations were used to calculate the fractions of A - U and G - C base pairs in the samples.

It was found that the helical content of the RNA's inside the subunits is smaller than that of the isolated RNA's, thus suggesting that proteins may affect the secondary structure of RNA in the ribosome.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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