Disruption of sheared base pairings in helix 44 and KsgA activity. (A) The A1418C and A1483C mutations in helix 44 were constructed and tested for substrate activity. (B) and (C), respectively, represent the sucrose gradient profiles of A1418C and A1483C mutants. (D) Time course activity assays for KsgA catalyzed transfer of methyl groups to 30STag,UM subunits (red) and the mutant subunits, 30STag,UM[A1418C] (green) and 30STag,UM[A1483C] (blue).