Organic nanoelectronics inside us: charge transport and localization in RNA could orchestrate ribosome operation

Abstract

Translation—protein synthesis at the ribonucleic acid (RNA) based molecular machine, ribosome, — proceeds in a similar manner in all life forms. However, despite several decades of research, the physics underlying this process remains enigmatic. Specifically, during translation, a ribosome undergoes large-scale conformational changes of its distant parts, and these motions are precisely synchronized by an unknown mechanism. In this study, we suggest that such a mechanism could be related to charge (electron hole) transport along and between the RNA molecules, localization of these charges at certain sites and successive relaxation of molecular geometry. Thus, we suppose that RNA-based molecular machines, e.g., ribosome, are electronically controlled, having “wires”, “actuators”, “battery”, and other “circuitry”. Taking transfer RNA as an example, we justify the reasonability of our suggestion using ab initio and atomistic simulations. We anticipate that our findings will qualitatively advance the understanding of the key biological processes and could inspire novel approaches in medicine.