Leitão Ana Lúcia, Costa Marina C, Enguita Francisco J
Departamento de Ciências e Tecnologia da Biomassa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Quinta da Torre, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal.
Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Prof. Egas Moniz, 1649-028 Lisboa, Portugal.
Int J Mol Sci. 2015 Jan 22;16(2):2269-93. doi: 10.3390/ijms16022269.
The centrality of RNA within the biological world is an irrefutable fact that currently attracts increasing attention from the scientific community. The panoply of functional RNAs requires the existence of specific biological caretakers, RNA helicases, devoted to maintain the proper folding of those molecules, resolving unstable structures. However, evolution has taken advantage of the specific position and characteristics of RNA helicases to develop new functions for these proteins, which are at the interface of the basic processes for transference of information from DNA to proteins. RNA helicases are involved in many biologically relevant processes, not only as RNA chaperones, but also as signal transducers, scaffolds of molecular complexes, and regulatory elements. Structural biology studies during the last decade, founded in X-ray crystallography, have characterized in detail several RNA-helicases. This comprehensive review summarizes the structural knowledge accumulated in the last two decades within this family of proteins, with special emphasis on the structure-function relationships of the most widely-studied families of RNA helicases: the DEAD-box, RIG-I-like and viral NS3 classes.
RNA在生物界的核心地位是一个无可辩驳的事实，目前正吸引着科学界越来越多的关注。众多功能性RNA需要特定的生物守护者——RNA解旋酶的存在，这些解旋酶致力于维持这些分子的正确折叠，解开不稳定结构。然而，进化利用了RNA解旋酶的特定位置和特性，为这些蛋白质开发了新功能，它们处于从DNA到蛋白质信息传递基本过程的界面。RNA解旋酶不仅作为RNA伴侣，还作为信号转导器、分子复合物支架和调节元件，参与许多生物学相关过程。过去十年基于X射线晶体学的结构生物学研究详细表征了几种RNA解旋酶。这篇综述总结了过去二十年在这个蛋白质家族中积累的结构知识，特别强调了研究最广泛的RNA解旋酶家族：DEAD-box、RIG-I样和病毒NS3类的结构-功能关系。
