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REPORT |
1 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306-4390, USA
2 National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Tallahassee, Florida 32306-4390, USA
Reprint requests to: Nancy L. Greenbaum, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dittmer Laboratory of Chemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4390, USA; e-mail: nancyg{at}chem.fsu.edu; fax: (850) 644-8281.
| ABSTRACT |
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Keywords: pseudouridine; branch site; RNA; supercooled water; NMR; imino protons
| INTRODUCTION |
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Exploiting the empirical observation that the freezing point of water decreases proportionally with volume (Angell 1982
), Poppe and van Halbeek (1994)
studied sucrose in glass capillary tubes at 17°C, allowing measurement of OH proton chemical shifts and 3JHH couplings. The capillary technique was extended to BPTI, ubiquitin, dATP, and dGTP in supercooled water at about 18°C (Skalicky et al. 2000
, 2001
).
In this study, we have investigated the structural role of exchangeable protons of pseudouridine (
), a rotational isomer of uridine attached to its ribose through C5, in RNA duplexes.
has two imino nitrogen atoms,
N1H and
N3H, both of which are protonated at physiological pH (Hall and McLaughlin 1991
). Presence of
in RNA helices has been shown to increase thermal stability without altering structure (Davis and Poulter 1991
; Hall and McLaughlin 1991
; Arnez and Steitz 1994
; Kintanar et al. 1994
; Durant and Davis 1999
; Yarian et al. 1999
), postulated to be the result of a water-mediated hydrogen bond involving the
N1H (Arnez and Steitz 1994
; Newby and Greenbaum 2002a
) and/or improved base stacking (Yarian et al. 1999
; Chui et al. 2002
). In the case of the pre-mRNA branch site helix of the yeast spliceosome, the presence of a conserved
induces a strikingly different structure than that observed with uridine (Newby and Greenbaum 2001
, 2002b
). Structural models of the branch site duplex suggested that
did not appear to form a base pair with the opposing adenine (A23, adjacent to the bulged base, A24), and no resonance attributable to
N3H was visible (Fig. 1
). Identification of this resonance would contribute important information about the environment of this imino proton with respect to surrounding bases.
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(Fig. 1
in the branch site duplex. Determining the role of
in stabilizing RNA structures may explain its phylogenetic conservation in the branch site helix and elsewhere in structural RNA molecules. | RESULTS AND DISCUSSION |
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MP) in order to characterize the resonances of its two imino protons,
N1H and
N3H, in a non-base-paired environment. Spectra of imino protons (including line widths) were identical for samples in capillaries and as a bulk sample at 0°C and 5°C (data not shown). The
N1H and
N3H proton chemical shifts were 10.6 and 10.8 ppm and line-widths at half-height (
1/2) were 3.8 and ~ 5.1 Hz at 0°C, respectively (Fig. 2A
1/2 decreased monotonically (2.0 and 2.7 Hz for N1H and N3H, respectively), consistent with line narrowing associated with slower solvent exchange.
1/2 of N1H was slightly larger than that of N3H, presumably as a result of dipolar broadening from the proximal H6 proton of
(2.5 and 4.8 Å between H6 and N1H and N3H, respectively). We also observed a slight temperature dependence of chemical shift (thermal coefficient) for the imino protons. Positive thermal coefficients (i.e., more upfield chemical shift as a function of decreased temperature) correlate with rapid exchange, whereas negative thermal coefficients correlate with slower exchange, and are therefore consistent with hydrogen bonding (Nonin et al. 1995
N1H and
N3H were 6.1 and 5.3 ppb/°C, respectively, consistent with a non-base-paired environment for each proton (data not shown).
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comp) (Fig. 1
, participate in Watson-Crick base pairs (Fig. 2B
is in the anti-conformation, its N3H forms a hydrogen bond with the opposing adenine N1, reflected in the downfield shift of the imino proton resonance to 13.1 ppm (Fig. 2B
were replaced by uridine (U). We assigned the resonance at 10.6 ppm to
N1H, which is on the major groove edge of the base when in an anti-conformation, based upon the chemical shift for this imino proton in
MP and from observation of an NOE between it and the H6 proton (2.5 Å away) (Hall and McLaughlin 1992
N1H and water molecules (Newby and Greenbaum 2002a
N1H (but no other imino proton), indicating that the interaction with water is characterized by a significant component of cross-relaxation. This observation is consistent with participation of
N1H in a water-mediated hydrogen bond with a phosphate oxygen atom of the same or a neighboring nucleotide. This hydrogen bonding status was predicted by Durant and Davis (1999)
At about 10°C, a broad peak appeared at 12.2 ppm with a shoulder at 12.5 ppm. All imino protons of
comp had previously been assigned except for those belonging to terminal base pairs (Fig. 2B
); therefore, these new peaks were attributed to the imino protons of terminal residues. In contrast with the narrowing of peaks of the monophosphate at lower temperatures, broadening of peaks of the complementary duplex was observed below 0°C (line widths increased gradually from 50 Hz to 130 Hz). The exact reasons for this behavior may be a complex combination of slower tumbling of the larger molecule as a result of increased solvent viscosity, salt and buffer effects, or may represent the beginning of cold denaturation.
We then performed similar experiments on a minimal pre-mRNA branch site duplex of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (
BP), which represents the pairing between a short consensus region of the U2 snRNA and the intron (Fig. 1
). In contrast with the complementary duplex, presence of a
residue in the U2 snRNA strand of
BP (top strand in Fig. 1
) in its conserved position (Yu et al. 1998
; Ma et al. 2003
) results in a very different conformation than in its unmodified counterpart (Newby and Greenbaum 2001
, 2002b
). In the novel
BP motif, the unpaired adenosine is extruded from the helix and forms a base triple with the minor groove edge of A7 in the A7-U22 base pair. The 2'OH of this extrahelical adenosine is the nucleophile in the first cleavage step of splicing. The structural motif preferred in the presence of this
(
35 in the native yeast sequence) may explain the strong phylogenetic preservation of this modified base in this location. In
BP, the chemical shift of
N1H is 10.5 ppm (vs. 10.6 ppm in
MP and
comp). As was observed in
comp, previous NMR investigation of the interaction of
N1H of
BP indicated that this proton undergoes cross-relaxation with water molecule(s) in the major groove of the duplex (Newby and Greenbaum 2002a
). Unlike the case with
comp, proton spectra of
BP revealed no resonance attributable to
N3H, and structural models did not indicate formation of a base pair between
and the opposing adenine (A23, adjacent to the branch site base A24).
In order to identify the resonance location of the absent (and presumably exchange broadened)
N3H in the branch site duplex at 0°C5°C, we acquired spectra of
BP in supercooled water (Fig. 2C
). As in spectra of the complementary duplex, a broad new peak emerged at 12.2 ppm below 5°C, corresponding to the G2 terminal base pair. The imino proton of the other terminal base pair may be degenerate with a resonance at 13.3 ppm. Unique to the branch site duplex, a broad peak emerged at 11.2 ppm at 15°C. Because assignments of all other imino protons of the branch site helix were made by systematic comparison with other duplexes (Newby and Greenbaum 2002b
), we identified this upfield-shifted resonance as that of
N3H. No NOEs were observed from this broad peak. The
N3H chemical shift was close to that of the unpaired N3H of
MP, which is not base paired (Fig. 2A
) and very different from that of the Watson-Crick paired
of
comp(Fig. 2B
). The upfield location of
N3H of
BP (Fig. 2C
) further supports our original finding that
6 does not form a canonical base pair with A23 (Newby and Greenbaum 2002b
). As with
comp, line widths began to broaden below 0°C, increasing from 50 Hz to 200 Hz.
We noted that chemical shifts of each imino proton varied slightly with a decrease in temperature. We therefore generated a thermal coefficient for each imino proton resonance by plotting the chemical shifts as a function of temperature (Fig. 3
). For
comp, negative thermal coefficients (more downfield shifts with respect to decreased temperature) were observed for all protons except the terminal imino proton (Fig. 3
, top). The thermal coefficient for
N1H and
N3H was 6.2 ppb/°C and 0.7 ppb/°C, respectively, suggesting that both form hydrogen bonds (Newby and Greenbaum 2001
, 2002a
,b
). The thermal coefficient for G2 was positive, consistent with rapid exchange expected for a solvent-exposed terminal base pair.
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BP, protons with negative thermal coefficients belonged to G8, G5, G3, U4, and
N1H, and those with positive thermal coefficients were G2, U22, and
N3H (Fig. 3
N1H (3.7 ppb/°C) reinforced the conclusion that this imino proton is involved in a hydrogen bond, as suggested by the results of earlier NMR studies (Newby and Greenbaum 2002a
N3H was 0.08 ppb/°C. Although U22 forms a Watson-Crick base pair with A7, its involvement in the base triple with the branch site A and its position adjacent to the unpaired
exposes U22 N3H to solvent, which apparently increases its exchange rate. For
N3H, this positive value is in accord with rapid exchange, suggesting the proton is not involved in a hydrogen bond. This observation, combined with its upfield-shifted position and lack of NOEs to surrounding residues, especially the adjacent A2H, is entirely consistent with our original conclusion about this
s non-base-paired status (Newby and Greenbaum 2002b
BP structure. In conclusion, NMR data at low temperatures allow us to identify imino protons that are undetected at higher temperatures due to rapid exchange. This technique may be helpful in structure determination of non-base-paired regions of novel RNA motifs and for extending the temperature range over which chemical shift data can be acquired. Applying the capillary technique appears to be promising for NMR in supercooled water using other interesting biomolecules.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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MP), a complementary RNA duplex (
comp, 5'-GGUG
AGUA-3' vs. 5'-UACUACACC-3') (shown in Fig. 1
BP, 5'-GGUG
AGUA-3' vs. 5'-UACUAACACC-3'; bulged A is underlined) (Fig. 1
comp and
BP and verified by mobility on a nondenaturing gel. The duplexes were lyophilized to dryness and resuspended in 250 µL of NMR buffer consisting of 10 mM sodium phosphate (pH 6.4), 50 mM sodium chloride, and 0.1 mM EDTA in 90% H2O/10% D2O (99.96%; Cambridge Isotope Laboratories). Final concentration of RNA strands in NMR samples was 2.7 mM for
comp and 2.5 mM for
BP. NMR assignments of imino protons of
BP were reported previously (Newby and Greenbaum 2001
Sample preparation
Open-ended glass capillaries of 1.0 mm OD were purchased from Fisher (no. 34500-99). The capillaries were prepared by soaking in 100% methanol overnight and then dried at 170°C. Solutions of RNA were centrifuged at 14,000 rpm for 30 min in order to remove particles that could nucleate ice crystals. The samples were then taken up by capillary action with 27 µL in each capillary. The ends of the open capillaries were flamed sealed, and the capillaries were placed in a 5-mm NMR tube (Poppe and van Halbeek 1994
; Skalicky et al. 2000
, 2001
). Bundles of 910 capillaries have a filling factor of 30%40% to yield an effective concentration of 1 mM for the two RNA duplexes;
MP, with a starting concentration of 10 mM in six capillaries, had an effective concentration of 2.5 mM.
NMR spectroscopy
NMR spectra were acquired on a 720-MHz and 600-MHz Varian Unity Plus spectrometers (National High Magnetic Field Laboratory). Samples were cooled at a rate of 1.5°C/h to 2.5°C/h with an increase in rate as the temperature decreased. The jump-return echo pulse sequence (Sklenár and Bax 1987
) was used to array the temperature decrease in order to observe the imino protons at different temperatures, and freezing of one or more capillaries was monitored by a proportional decrease in signal intensity, but no capillary tubes broke. We used 64 steady-state scans prior to each acquisition. In order to improve signal quality at lower temperatures, we doubled the number of acquisitions for each incremental temperature decrease of 2.5°C: 128 at 5°C, 512 scans for 10°C, and up to 4096 scans at 17.5°C. Processing of NMR data and simulation line-width at half height were accomplished using Felix 2.3 (Biosyn).
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| Footnotes |
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Article and publication are at http://www.rnajournal.org/cgi/doi/10.1261/rna.2270205.
Received February 7, 2005; accepted April 20, 2005.
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