Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Jun 24.
Published in final edited form as: Q Rev Biophys. 2016 Jun 24;49:e10. doi: 10.1017/S003358351600007X

Figure 2.

Figure 2

RNA interactions with RNA binding proteins (RBP, left), metal ions (central), and ligands (star, right) can result in structure changes. Unlike typical in vitro conditions, there are other molecules and complex solutions conditions in vivo that can interact with RNA and change its structure. These structure changes can result in an RNA with less structure (top left) more structure (top right), or an alternate conformation than the structure that is prevalent in vitro (bottom). Also shown (bottom) are the bacterial expression platforms of riboswitches that switch between two mutually exclusive structures that turn a gene ON (left) or OFF (right) by exposing or sequestering the Shine-Dalgarno sequence (blue).