Crystallography Reveals Key Vulnerable Structure in RNA Polymerase

Abstract

Without a properly functioning RNA polymerase (RNAP), which transcribes genetic information in DNA into messenger RNA molecules, proteins cannot be made properly, and cells die. A refolding loop structure in RNAP is the site responsible for the rate-limiting step in the reactions that this important enzyme catalyzes—and also is the site where several antibiotics bind, based on X-ray crystallographic analysis by Irina Artsimovitch of Ohio State University, Columbus, Dmitry Vassylyev of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, Robert Land-rick of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and their collaborators. The new information may lead to development of better antibiotics.