Mg2+ -Dependent High Mechanical Anisotropy of Three-Way-Junction pRNA as Revealed by Single-Molecule Force Spectroscopy.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl
; 56(32): 9376-9380, 2017 08 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28631866
ABSTRACT
Mechanical anisotropy is ubiquitous in biological tissues but is hard to reproduce in synthetic biomaterials. Developing molecular building blocks with anisotropic mechanical response is the key towards engineering anisotropic biomaterials. The three-way-junction (3WJ) pRNA, derived from Ï29 DNA packaging motor, shows strong mechanical anisotropy upon Mg2+ binding. In the absence of Mg2+ , 3WJ-pRNA is mechanically weak without noticeable mechanical anisotropy. In the presence of Mg2+ , the unfolding forces can differ by more than 4-fold along different pulling directions, ranging from about 47â
pN to about 219â
pN. Mechanical anisotropy of 3WJ-pRNA stems from pulling direction dependent cooperativity for the rupture of two Mg2+ binding sites, which is a novel mechanism for the mechanical anisotropy of biomacromolecules. It is anticipated that 3WJ-pRNA can be used as a key element for the construction of biomaterials with controllable mechanical anisotropy.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
RNA, Viral
/
Magnesium
Language:
En
Journal:
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl
Year:
2017
Document type:
Article
Publication country:
ALEMANHA
/
ALEMANIA
/
DE
/
DEUSTCHLAND
/
GERMANY