Mechanisms for differentiation between cognate and near-cognate ligands by purine riboswitches.

Riboswitches are elements in the 5'-untranslated region of mRNAs that regulate gene expression by directly interacting with metabolites related to their own gene products. A remarkable feature of this gene regulation mechanism is the high specificity of riboswitches for their cognate ligands. In this study, we used a combination of static and time-resolved NMR-spectroscopic methods to investigate the mechanisms for ligand specificity in purine riboswitches. We investigate the xpt-aptamer domain from a guanine-responsive riboswitch and the mfl-aptamer domain from a 2'-deoxyguanosine-responsive riboswitch. The xpt-aptamer binds the purine nucleobases guanine/hypoxanthine with high affinity, but, unexpectedly, also the nucleoside 2'-deoxyguanosine. On the other hand, the mfl-aptamer is highly specific for its cognate ligand 2'-deoxyguanosine, and does not bind purine ligands. We addressed the question of aptamer`s ligand specificity by real-time NMR spectroscopy. Our studies of ligand binding and subsequently induced aptamer folding revealed that the xpt-aptamer discriminates against non-cognate ligands by enhanced life-times of the cognate complex compared with non-cognate complexes, whereas the mfl-aptamer rejects non-cognate ligands at the level of ligand association, employing a kinetic proofreading mechanism.