Chemical Shifts-Based Similarity Restraints Improve Accuracy of RNA Structures Determined via NMR

Published

September 11, 2020

Author(s)

Chad Lawrence, Alexander Grishaev

Abstract

Determination of structure of RNA via NMR is complicated in large part by the lack of a precise parameterization linking the observed chemical shifts to the underlying geometric parameters. In contrast to proteins, where numerous high-resolution crystal structures serve as coordinate templates for this mapping, such models are rarely available for smaller oligonucleotides accessible via NMR, or they exhibit crystal packing and counter-ion binding artifacts that prevent their use for the chemical shifts analysis. On the other hand, NMR-determined structures of RNA often are not solved at the density of restraints needed to precisely define all of the variable degrees of freedom. In this study we sidestep the problems of direct parameterization of the RNA chemical shifts/structure relationship, and examine the effects of imposing local fragmental coordinate similarity restraints based on similarities of the experimental secondary ribose 13C/1H chemical shifts instead. The effect of such chemical shift similarity (CSS) restraints on the structural accuracy is assessed via residual dipolar coupling (RDC)-based cross-validation. Improvements in the coordinate accuracy are observed for all of the six RNA constructs considered here as test cases, which argues for routine inclusion of these terms during NMR-based oligonucleotide structure determination. Such accuracy improvements are expected to facilitate derivation of the chemical shift/structure relationships for RNA.

Citation

RNA

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

RNA structure, NMR, chemical shifts, residual dipolar couplings, cross-validation, accuracy

Citation

Lawrence, C. and Grishaev, A. (2020), Chemical Shifts-Based Similarity Restraints Improve Accuracy of RNA Structures Determined via NMR, RNA, [online], https://doi.org/10.1261/rna.074617.119 (Accessed April 28, 2024)