Chemistry Department 5011 Seminar

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

James R. Bryce

A Structural Model for the Binding of 7SK Long Noncoding RNA to the La-Related Protein Larp7

The 7SK ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complex regulates the activity of the kinase positive transcription elongation factor b (P-TEFb), an essential activator of RNA Polymerase II transcription. While the human La-related protein group 7 (hLarp7) protein is essential for the assembly and stability of the 7SK RNP, little is known about the structure and protein-RNA interactions in the 7SK RNP.  Applying x-ray crystallography, isothermal titration calorimetry, and NMR, new insights have been discovered in the structure and the interactions of 7SK RNP. Due to this new information, researchers were able to propose a working model for how the hLarp7 interacts with the 7SK long noncoding RNA to assemble the 7SK RNP.  In this seminar, how the hLarp7 protein recognizes and binds with the 7SK RNA to form the 7SK RNP is discussed.