Sarah Woodson

How small RNAs find their partners with the Hfq chaperone

Abstract:

Small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs) regulate gene expression in E. coli bacteria in response to diverse stimuli in the environment and the host and are essential for stress response and virulence. Most sRNAs regulate mRNA expression by directly base pairing with complementary sites in the target mRNA with the help of the chaperone protein Hfq. sRNAs and Hfq must rapidly search hundreds of candidate mRNAs for matched targets while discriminating against non-targets. We used single molecule fluorescence microscopy to directly observe how cognate and non-cognate sRNAs and mRNAs bind immobilized sRNA-Hfq. The results show how Hfq drives the kinetic selection of stable sRNA-mRNA duplexes through 1D scanning of candidate mRNA targets and by active cycling of competitor RNAs on and off the protein. 

Speaker: Sarah Woodson, Johns Hopkins University

Sarah Woodson is the T. C. Jenkins Professor of Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University.  She received her PhD in Biophysical Chemistry in 1987 with Donald Crothers at Yale University, and did postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Thomas Cech at the University of Colorado Boulder.  Her research group studies how RNA molecules fold, and how RNAs interact with proteins for gene regulation and ribosome assembly. 

Seminars start at 4:00 pm, and refreshments will be served at 3:45 pm. All seminars are held in the 2136 Physical Sciences Complex (#415) unless otherwise noted.