Paper Citing NAMD - Abstract
Chen, Ke; Eargle, John; Lai, Jonathan; Kim, Hajin; Abeysirigunawardena, Sanjaya; Mayerle, Megan; Woodson, Sarah; Ha, Taekjip; Luthey-Schulten, Zaida
Assembly of the Five-Way Junction in the Ribosomal Small Subunit Using Hybrid MD-Go Simulations
JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY B, 116:6819-6831, JUN 14 2012
Assembly of the bacterial ribosomal small subunit (SSU) begins with the folding of the five-way junction upon interaction with the primary binding protein S4. This complex contains the largest contiguous molecular signature, which is a conserved feature in all bacterial 16S rRNAs. In a previous study, we used all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to demonstrate that the co-evolving signature in the N-terminus of S4 is intrinsically disordered and capable of accelerating the binding process through a fly casting mechanism. In this paper, comparisons between the all-atom MD simulations and FRET experiments identify multiple metastable conformations of the naked five-way junction without the presence of S4. Furthermore, we capture the simultaneous folding and binding of the five-way junction and r-protein S4 by use of a structure-based Go potential implemented within the framework of the all-atom molecular dynamics CHARMM force field. Different folding pathways are observed for the refolding of the five-way junction upon partial binding of S4. Our simulations illustrate the complex nature of RNA folding in the presence of a protein binding partner and provide insight into the role of population shift and the induced fit mechanisms in the protein:RNA folding and binding process.
