Riboswitches: Structures and Mechanisms

  1. Robert T. Batey
  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0215
  1. Correspondence: robert.batey{at}colorado.edu

SUMMARY

A critical feature of the hypothesized RNA world would have been the ability to control chemical processes in response to environmental cues. Riboswitches present themselves as viable candidates for a sophisticated mechanism of regulatory control in RNA-based life. These regulatory elements in the modern world are most commonly found in the 5′-untranslated regions of bacterial mRNAs, directly interacting with metabolites as a means of regulating expression of the coding region via a secondary structural switch. In this review, we focus on recent insights into how these RNAs fold into complex architectures capable of both recognizing a specific small molecule compound and exerting regulatory control over downstream sequences, with an emphasis on transcriptional regulation.



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      1. Cold Spring Harb. Perspect. Biol. 3: a003533 Copyright © 2011 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; all rights reserved

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