Nucleic Acids Research, 1980, Vol. 8, No. 19 4521-4534
© 1980
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY |
Chemical modification studies and the secondary structure of HeLa cell 5.8S rRNA
Department of Biochemistry, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK Minamikawachi-machi, Tochigi-ken, 329-04, Japan
Received August 11, 1980.
Various secondary structure models have been proposed for 5.8 S rRNA. In this paper HeLa 5.8 S rRNA is shown to possess several sites that are reactive to carbodiimide at 25°, and other regions that are unreactive. Previous work has established the distribution of reactive and unreactive cytidine residues along the primary structure (11). The secondary structure model of Nazar et al. (7) is fully compatible with the chemical reactivity data whereas other models are partly incompatible. We conclude that the model of Nazar et al. provides the best approximation so far available to the conformation of isolated 5.8 S rRNA. Findings on the effect of temperature on the chemical reactivity of different parts of the structure are summarized. The findings described in this paper should provide a basis for examining the specific interaction of 5.8 S rRNA with 28 S rRNA.
*John Kelly's present address is :-Department of Biochemistry, National Institute for Medical Research, The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA. Correspondence on this paper should be addressed to B.E.H. Maden, Department of Biochemistry, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ.