Berlin 2024 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 27: Single Molecule Biophysics
BP 27.10: Vortrag
Donnerstag, 21. März 2024, 12:15–12:30, H 0112
Direct imaging of single RNAs — •Shengpeng Huang1, Klaus Kern1,2, and Kelvin Anggara1 — 1Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research — 2Institute de Physique, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) plays key roles in many biological processes, including gene expression, protein synthesis, chemical catalysis, and cellular regulation. Despite its ubiquity, understanding flexible RNA structures remain challenging with ensemble-averaged methods, such as X-ray crystallography, cryo electron microscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance.
We confront this problem by direct imaging of RNAs deposited on surfaces, which offers an interesting possibility to determine directly the RNA sequence and its consequent three-dimensional structures. We employ the Electrospray Ion Beam Deposition (ESIBD) technique to transfer intact RNA molecules in a solution onto a surface in vacuo, which are subsequently imaged by Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy (STM). Using our ESIBD+STM approach, we have successfully deposited and imaged single chains of intact 60-mer RNA, which allows individual RNA chains to be structurally characterized at the single nucleotide level. Single molecule imaging of RNA presents a new approach to structurally determine many interesting post-translational modifications (PTMs) of RNAs with important biological roles.
Keywords: RNA; electrospray ion beam deposition; scanning tunnelling microscopy; single molecule imaging