Skip to main content
PMC home page
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1971 Apr;68(4):841–845. doi: 10.1073/pnas.68.4.841

High-Resolution X-Ray Diffraction Patterns of Crystalline Transfer RNA That Show Helical Regions

Sung Hou Kim 1, Gary Quigley 1, F L Suddath 1, Alexander Rich 1
PMCID: PMC389056  PMID: 5279525

Abstract

Yeast phenylalanyl transfer RNA crystallizes in a simple orthorhombic unit cell (a = 33.2, b = 56.1, c = 161 Å), and the crystal yields an x-ray diffraction pattern with a resolution of 2.3 Å. From an analysis of the packing in the unit cell it is concluded that the molecular dimensions are approximately 80 by 33 by 28 Å. The diffraction pattern viewed along the a-axis has a distribution characteristic of double-helical nucleic acids. However, this distribution is not found when the pattern is viewed along the b-axis. This has been interpreted as indicating that the double-helical portions of the transfer RNA molecule are approximately half a helical turn in length, and therefore can contain 4-7 base pairs. These results are consistent with the cloverleaf formulation of transfer RNA secondary structure.

Full text

PDF

Images in this article

841Image
on p.841
842Image
on p.842
843Image
on p.843

Selected References

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

  1. Arnott S., Fuller W., Hodgson A., Prutton I. Molecular conformations and structure transitions of RNA complementary helices and their possible biological significance. Nature. 1968 Nov 9;220(5167):561–564. doi: 10.1038/220561a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Cramer F., Haar F V. D., Saenger W., Schlimme E. Single crystals of phenylalanine-specific transfer ribonucleic acid. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 1968 Nov;7(11):895–895. doi: 10.1002/anie.196808951. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Fresco J. R., Blake R. D., Langridge R. Crystallization of transfer ribonucleic acids from unfractionated mixtures. Nature. 1968 Dec 28;220(5174):1285–1287. doi: 10.1038/2201285a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. HOLLEY R. W., APGAR J., EVERETT G. A., MADISON J. T., MARQUISEE M., MERRILL S. H., PENSWICK J. R., ZAMIR A. STRUCTURE OF A RIBONUCLEIC ACID. Science. 1965 Mar 19;147(3664):1462–1465. doi: 10.1126/science.147.3664.1462. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Hampel A., Labanauskas M., Connors P. G., Kirkegard L., RajBhandary U. L., Sigler P. B., Bock R. M. Single crystals of transfer RNA from formylmethionine and phenylalanine transfer RNA's. Science. 1968 Dec 20;162(3860):1384–1387. doi: 10.1126/science.162.3860.1384. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Kim S. H., Rich A. Crystalline transfer RNA: the three-dimensional Patterson function at 12-angstrom resolution. Science. 1969 Dec 26;166(3913):1621–1624. doi: 10.1126/science.166.3913.1621. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Kim S. H., Rich A. Single crystals of transfer RNA: an x-ray diffraction study. Science. 1968 Dec 20;162(3860):1381–1384. doi: 10.1126/science.162.3860.1381. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. LANGRIDGE R., GOMATOS P. J. The structure of RNA. Reovirus RNA and transfer RNA have similar three-dimensional structures, which differ from DNA. Science. 1963 Aug 23;141(3582):694–698. doi: 10.1126/science.141.3582.694. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Sato T., Kyogoku Y., Higuchi S., Mitsui Y., Iitaka Y., Tsuboi M., Miura K. I. A preliminay investigation on the molecular structure of rice dwarf virus ribonucleic acid. J Mol Biol. 1966 Mar;16(1):180–190. doi: 10.1016/s0022-2836(66)80271-1. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America are provided here courtesy of National Academy of Sciences

RESOURCES