Group I self-splicing introns catalyze their own excision from precursor RNAs by way of a two-step transesterification reaction. The catalytic core of these ribozymes is formed by two structural domains. The 2.8-angstrom crystal structure of one of these, the P4-P6 domain of the Tetrahymena thermophila intron, is described. In the 160-nucleotide domain, a sharp bend allows stacked helices of the conserved core to pack alongside helices of an adjacent region. Two specific long-range interactions clamp the two halves of the domain together: a two-Mg2+-coordinated adenosine-rich corkscrew plugs into the minor groove of a helix, and a GAAA hairpin loop binds to a conserved 11-nucleotide internal loop. Metal- and ribose-mediated backbone contacts further stabilize the close side-by-side helical packing. The structure indicates the extent of RNA packing required for the function of large ribozymes, the spliceosome, and the ribosome.

To understand the health impact of long-duration spaceflight, one identical twin astronaut was monitored before, during, and after a 1-year mission onboard the International Space Station; his twin served as a genetically matched ground control. Longitudinal assessments identified spaceflight-specific changes, including decreased body mass, telomere elongation, genome instability, carotid artery distension and increased intima-media thickness, altered ocular structure, transcriptional and metabolic changes, DNA methylation changes in immune and oxidative stress–related pathways, gastrointestinal microbiota alterations, and some cognitive decline postflight. Although average telomere length, global gene expression, and microbiome changes returned to near preflight levels within 6 months after return to Earth, increased numbers of short telomeres were observed and expression of some genes was still disrupted. These multiomic, molecular, physiological, and behavioral datasets provide a valuable roadmap of the putative health risks for future human spaceflight.

The crystal structure of a group I intron domain reveals an unexpected motif that mediates both intra- and intermolecular interactions. At three separate locations in the 160-nucleotide domain, adjacent adenosines in the sequence lie side-by-side and form a pseudo-base pair within a helix. This adenosine platform opens the minor groove for base stacking or base pairing with nucleotides from a noncontiguous RNA strand. The platform motif has a distinctive chemical modification signature that may enable its detection in other structured RNAs. The ability of this motif to facilitate higher order folding provides one explanation for the abundance of adenosine residues in internal loops of many RNAs.

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A computer program is described that produces a description of the secondary structure and supersecondary structure of a polypeptide chain using the list of alpha carbon coordinates as input. Restricting the term "secondary structure" to the conformation of contiguous segments of the chain, the program determines the initial and final residues in helices, extended strands, sharp turns, and omega loops. This is accomplished through the use of difference distance matrices. The distances in idealized models of the segments are compared with the actual structure, and the differences are evaluated for agreement within preset limits. The program assigns 90-95% of the residues in most proteins to at least one type of secondary element. In a second step the now-defined helices and strands are idealized as straight line segments, and the axial directions and locations are compiled from the input C alpha coordinate list. These data are used to check for moderate curvature in strands and helices, and the secondary structure list is corrected where necessary. The geometric relations between these line segments are then calculated and output as the first level of supersecondary structure. A maximum of six parameters are required for a complete description of the relations between each pair. Frequently a less complete description will suffice, for example just the interaxial separation and angle. Both the secondary structure and one aspect of the supersecondary structure can be displayed in a character matrix analogous to the distance matrix format. This allows a quite accurate two-dimensional display of the three-dimensional structure, and several examples are presented. A procedure for searching for arbitrary substructures in proteins using distance matrices is also described. A search for the DNA binding helix-turn-helix motif in the Protein Data Bank serves as an example. A further abstraction of the above data can be made in the form of a metamatrix where each diagonal element represents an entire secondary segment rather than a single atom, and the off-diagonal elements contain all the parameters describing their interrelations. Such matrices can be used in a straightforward search for higher levels of supersecondary structure or used in toto as a representation of the entire tertiary structure of the polypeptide chain.