Conserved unpaired adenine residues are important for ordered structures of 5S ribosomal RNA. An infrared study of the secondary and tertiary structure of Thermus thermophilus 5S rRNA.

An improved set of infrared calibration spectra for the determination of G X C and A X U base pairs leads to 32 +/- 3 G X C (+ G X U) and 4 +/- 1 A X U base pairs for Thermus thermophilus 5S RNA in the presence and absence of Mg2+. These results give further support for the consensus secondary structure of 5S RNA recently proposed by several groups. T. thermophilus 5S RNA shows, in the presence of Mg2+, a distinct two-step thermal melting of its ordered structure. Based on new data about the stacking dependence of infrared intensities of unpaired ribonucleotides the spectral changes of the low-temperature transition should be explained by melting of stacked arrangements of unpaired bases and/or non-standard base pairs. Striking is the reduction in A stacking, which is not related to the melting of A X U base pairs, indicating the importance of the mostly conserved unpaired adenines for the Mg2+ stabilized higher-order structures especially within internal loops of 5S RNA.