Open AccessAnalysis of the RNA structural elements involved in the binding of the transcription factor III A fromXenopus laevis
Author(s) -
Tomas Pieler,
Ulrich Guddat,
Shiao Li Oei,
Volker A. Erdmann
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
nucleic acids research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 9.008
H-Index - 537
eISSN - 1362-4954
pISSN - 0305-1048
DOI - 10.1093/nar/14.15.6313
Subject(s) - biology , xenopus , transcription (linguistics) , transcription factor , rna , ribosomal rna , genetics , transcription factor ii b , binding site , rna polymerase , microbiology and biotechnology , gene , linguistics , philosophy
Xenopus laevis 5S rRNA isolated from 7S particles or transcribed in vitro is found to adopt two alternative conformations. These two conformers contain different structural elements within the major TF III A binding domain, which, when isolated as RNA fragments, still interact with the transcription factor. Chemical modification of easily accessible adenines in their N-1 position does not have any measurable effect on the binding of 5S rRNA to TF III A. These observations are in support of the idea that only a small amount of conserved sequence information is required for the binding of the transcription factor, whereas specific secondary structure features seem to be essential.