The visualization of RNA conformational changes has provided fundamental insights into how regulatory RNAs carry out their biological functions. The RNA structural transitions that have been characterized to date involve long-lived species that can be captured by structure characterization techniques. Here, we report the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance visualization of RNA transitions towards invisible ‘excited states’ (ES), which exist in too little abundance (2–13%) and for too short periods of time (45–250 μs) to allow structural characterization by conventional techniques. Transitions towards ESs result in localized rearrangements in base-pairing that alter building block elements of RNA architecture, including helix-junction-helix motifs and apical loops. The ES can inhibit function by sequestering residues involved in recognition and signaling or promote ATP-independent strand exchange. Thus, RNAs do not adopt a single conformation, but rather exist in rapid equilibrium with alternative ESs, which can be stabilized by cellular cues to affect functional outcomes.

Preface Conformational changes involving coding and non-coding RNAs form the basis for genetic regulatory elements and provide an important source of complexity for driving many fundamental processes of life. While RNA is highly flexible, the underlying dynamics are robust and limited to transitions between the few conformations that preserve favorable base-pairing and stacking interactions. The mechanisms by which cellular processes harness RNA’s intrinsic dynamic behavior and steer it towards functionally productive pathways are complex. Versatile functions and ease of integration into a wide variety of genetic circuits and biochemical pathways suggests a general and fundamental role for RNA dynamics in cellular processes.

The HIV-1 transactivation response element (TAR) RNA binds a variety of proteins and is a target for developing anti-HIV therapies. TAR has two primary binding sites: a UCU bulge and a CUGGGA apical loop. We used NMR residual dipolar couplings, carbon spin relaxation (R(1) and R(2)), and relaxation dispersion (R(1rho)) in conjunction with molecular dynamics and mutagenesis to characterize the dynamics of the TAR apical loop and investigate previously proposed long-range interactions with the distant bulge. Replacement of the wild-type apical loop with a UUCG loop did not significantly affect the structural dynamics at the bulge, indicating that the apical loop and the bulge act largely as independent dynamical recognition centers. The apical loop undergoes complex dynamics at multiple timescales that are likely important for adaptive recognition: U31 and G33 undergo limited motions, G32 is highly flexible at picosecond-nanosecond timescales, and G34 and C30 form a dynamic Watson-Crick basepair in which G34 and A35 undergo a slow (approximately 30 mus) likely concerted looping in and out motion, with A35 also undergoing large amplitude motions at picosecond-nanosecond timescales. Our study highlights the power of combining NMR, molecular dynamics, and mutagenesis in characterizing RNA dynamics.

RNA virus genomes are efficient and compact carriers of biological information, encoding information required for replication both in their primary sequences and in higher-order RNA structures. However, the ubiquity of RNA elements with higher-order folds—in which helices pack together to form complex 3D structures—and the extent to which these elements affect viral fitness are largely unknown. Here we used single-molecule correlated chemical probing to define secondary and tertiary structures across the RNA genome of dengue virus serotype 2 (DENV2). Higher-order RNA structures are pervasive and involve more than one-third of nucleotides in the DENV2 genomic RNA. These 3D structures promote a compact overall architecture and contribute to viral fitness. Disrupting RNA regions with higher-order structures leads to stable, nonreverting mutants and could guide the development of vaccines based on attenuated RNA viruses. The existence of extensive regions of functional RNA elements with tertiary folds in viral RNAs, and likely many other messenger and noncoding RNAs, means that there are significant regions with pocket-containing surfaces that may serve as novel RNA-directed drug targets.

Using on-and off-resonance carbon and nitrogen R1ρ NMR relaxation dispersion in concert with mutagenesis and NMR chemical shift fingerprinting, we show that the transactivation response element RNA from the HIV-1 exists in dynamic equilibrium with a transient state that has a lifetime of ∼2 ms and population of ∼0.4%, which simultaneously remodels the structure of a bulge, stem, and apical loop. This is accomplished by a global change in strand register, in which bulge residues pair up with residues in the upper stem, causing a reshuffling of base pairs that propagates to the tip of apical loop, resulting in the creation of three noncanonical base pairs. Our results show that transient states can remodel distant RNA motifs and possibly give rise to mechanisms for rapid long-range communication in RNA that can be harnessed in processes such as cooperative folding and ribonucleoprotein assembly.NMR spectroscopy | dynamics | R1ρ relaxation dispersion | nucleic acids I t is now well-established that RNA sequences do not code for a single static structure, but rather, many conformations that populate energetic minima along a free-energy landscape (1, 2). Cellular inputs, ranging from changes in temperature and pH to the binding of proteins, other RNAs, and ligands, can preferentially stabilize select conformations along the landscape, resulting in dynamic changes in RNA structure that drive the multistep catalytic cycles of ribozymes (3), regulatory activities of riboswitches (4) and other RNA-based switches (5), and the dynamic assembly and disassembly of ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes (6).A common mode of RNA dynamics involves rearrangements in secondary structure that can melt or create entire hairpins, and thereby expose or sequester key regulatory elements that are several nucleotides long (1,4,7,8). Such secondary structural transitions entail large kinetic barriers, so they are often catalyzed by RNA-binding proteins (9), ATP-dependent chaperones (10), or otherwise occur by modulating cotranscriptional folding (5, 11). Recently, NMR R1ρ relaxation dispersion experiments (12-15) in concert with mutagenesis (16) have helped uncover more labile RNA secondary structural transitions that can take place without assistance from external cofactors at rates that are 2-4 orders of magnitude faster than larger-scale secondary structural rearrangements. These transitions entail excursions away from the energetically favorable ground state (GS) toward lowpopulated (typically populations <15%) and short-lived (lifetime < milliseconds) species often referred to as "excited states" (ES) (12, 13). These invisible RNA ES feature localized reshuffling of base pairing in and around noncanonical motifs such as bulges, internal loops, and apical loops (16) which can also expose or sequester functionally important residues or promote ATPindependent large-scale changes in secondary structure (14, 15). These faster and more localized changes in secondary structure may meet unique demands in RNA-based regulatory functions (16).Using...

The RNA genomes of viruses likely undergo multiple functionally important conformational changes during their replication cycles, changes that are poorly understood at present. We used two complementary in-solution RNA structure probing strategies (SHAPE-MaP and RING-MaP) to examine the structure of the RNA genome of satellite tobacco mosaic virus inside authentic virions and in a capsid-free state. Both RNA states feature similar three-domain architectures in which each major replicative function – translation, capsid coding, and genome synthesis – fall into distinct domains. There are, however, large conformational differences between the in-virion and capsid-free states, primarily in one arm of the central T domain. These data support a model in which the packaged capsid-bound RNA is constrained in a local high-energy conformation by the native capsid shell. The removal of the viral capsid then allows the RNA genome to relax into a more thermodynamically stable conformation. These data support a model in which the RNA architecture of the central T domain changes during capsid assembly and disassembly and may play a role in genome packaging.

The application of residual dipolar couplings (RDCs) in studies of RNA structure and dynamics can be complicated by the presence of couplings between collective helix motions and overall alignment and by the inability to modulate overall alignment of the molecule by changing the ordering medium. Here, we show for a 27-nt TAR RNA construct that variable levels of helix elongation can be used to alter both overall alignment and couplings to collective helix motions in a semi-predictable manner. In the absence of elongation, a four base-pair helix II capped by a UUCG apical loop exhibits a higher degree of order compared to a six base-pair helix I (ϑI/ϑII = 0.56±0.1). The principal Szz direction is nearly parallel to the axis of helix II but deviates by ∼40° relative to the axis of helix I. Elongating helix I by three base-pairs equalizes the alignment of the two helices and pushes the RNA into the motional coupling limit such that the two helices have comparable degrees of order (ϑI/ϑII = 0.92±0.04) and orientations relative to Szz (∼17°). Increasing the length of elongation further to twenty-two base-pairs pushes the RNA into the motional decoupling limit in which helix I dominates alignment (ϑII/ϑI = 0.45±0.05), with Szz orientated nearly parallel to its helix axis. Many of these trends can be rationalized using PALES simulations that employ a previously proposed three-state dynamic ensemble of TAR. Our results provide new insights into motional couplings, offer guidelines for assessing their extent, and suggest that variable degrees of helix elongation can allow access to independent sets of RDCs for characterizing RNA structural dynamics.

[reaction: see text] The Kishner reduction of 2-furylhydrazone gives 2-methylene-2,3-dihydrofuran as the major abnormal reduction product. 2-Methylene-2,3-dihydrofuran is an excellent ene in the carbonyl-ene reaction, reacting with a variety of aldehydes. Most notable was the asymmetric carbonyl-ene reaction of 2-methylene-2,3-dihydrofuran and decanal using Ti(OCH(CH3)2)4/(S)-BINOL to give the corresponding alcohol in 66% yield and 94% ee. The reaction of 2-methylene-2,3-dihydrofuran with 2 equiv of 1,4-benzoquinone unexpectedly gave a monoalkylated 1,4-hydroquinone/1,4-benzoquinone electron donor-acceptor complex.