Intact ribosomes drive the formation of protein quinary structure.

Transient, site-specific, or so-called quinary, interactions are omnipresent in live cells and modulate protein stability and activity. Quinary intreactions are readily detected by in-cell NMR spectroscopy as severe broadening of the NMR signals. Intact ribosome particles were shown to be necessary for the interactions that give rise to the NMR protein signal broadening observed in cell lysates and sufficient to mimic quinary interactions present in the crowded cytosol. Recovery of target protein NMR spectra that were broadened in lysates, in vitro and in the presence of purified ribosomes was achieved by RNase A digestion only after the structure of the ribosome was destabilized by removing magnesium ions from the system. Identifying intact ribosomal particles as the major protein-binding component of quinary interactions and consequent spectral peak broadening will facilitate quantitative characterization of macromolecular crowding effects in live cells and streamline models of metabolic activity.