Cryo-EM

— The world's leading commercial Cryo-EM center.

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RNA

Many RNA molecules can fold into complex three-dimensional structures and perform fundamental biological functions, including regulating gene expression, sensing small molecules, and catalyzing chemical reactions. These biological functions are often achieved without the assistance of other proteins 【1】. Approximately 80% of the human genome is transcribed into RNA, while only 1.5% encodes proteins 【1】. As of July 10, 2023, the Protein Data Bank (PDB) contained merely 1,744 RNA-only structures, accounting for less than 1% of its total entries. The scarcity of RNA structures likely stems from RNA's intrinsic heterogeneity and flexibility, arising from its flexible ribose-phosphate backbone, weak long-range tertiary interactions, conformational polymorphism, and dynamic transitions between multiple functional states 【2-3】.

Advances in single-particle cryo-EM have enabled the determination of structures for large macromolecular protein-RNA complexes. However, if RNA itself can form stable tertiary structures—even in the absence of bound proteins—cryo-EM techniques can also be applied to solve the structures of protein-free RNA molecules.

References

【1】 Ma H, Jia X, Zhang K, et al. Cryo-EM advances in RNA structure determination[J]. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, 2022, 7(1): 58.
【2】 Ganser L R, Kelly M L, Herschlag D, et al. The roles of structural dynamics in the cellular functions of RNAs[J]. Nature reviews Molecular cell biology, 2019, 20(8): 474-489.
【3】 Ding J, Lee Y T, Bhandari Y, et al. Visualizing RNA conformational and architectural heterogeneity in solution[J]. Nature communications, 2023, 14(1): 714.

Single Particle Analysis (SPA)

Cryo-EM Structure Gallery

Single Particle Analysis