This structure is called a "kissing loop" and I find that name just a bit odd, given the source of the structure.
Now, here's the puzzle: Why would I say that the name "kissing loop" is ironic?
- Log in to post comments
More like this
A great abstract I found via improbable research blog:
How to write consistently boring scientific literature
Kaj Sand-Jensen (ksandjensen@bi.ku.dk), Freshwater Biological Laboratory, Univ. of Copenhagen, Helsingørsgade 51, DK-3400 Hillerød, Denmark.
Abstract
Although scientists typically insist…
Last week I posted an image with two molecules (below the fold), one protein and one nucleic acid, and asked you about the probability of finding similar molecules in different species.
You gave me some interesting answers.
DAG made me clarify my question by asking what I meant by "similarity…
So far, I've spent some time talking about groups and what they mean. I've also given a
brief look at the structures that can be built by adding properties and operations to groups -
specifically rings and fields.
Now, I'm going to start over, looking at things using category theory. Today, I'll…
To get started, what is category theory?
Back in grad school, I spent some time working with a thoroughly insane guy named John Case who was the new department chair. When he came to the university, he brought a couple of people with him, to take temporary positions. One of them was a category…
I wasn't familiar with this structure, but having read a bit about it now, it's seriously cool!
It seems it was first discovered in HIV (although it's apparently present in all retroviruses?). And of course, HIV is sexually transmitted. Hence the irony in the word kissing.
I was puzzled for a while by the ball-and-stick portions of the figure. I could see they weren't individual nucleotides of the RNAs, but couldn't tell what they were. Then I found the structure here.
The ball-and-sticks are molecules of the aminoglycoside antibiotic ribostamycin. That makes this even more cool. I had no idea that an antibiotic that normally targets bacterial ribosomes can also bind to a structural motif in HIV RNA. Looking over the discussion in the paper in question, I can see this is not a very new finding (some refs as early as 1993), but it's new to me.
Great post! Thanks!
Qetzal,
Glad you liked it! There are lots of amazing things that happen with RNA, this is only a peek behind the curtain.
Oh, I know it! I really like the unusual things that nucleic acids do. There are just too many of them to keep up with, and retroviruses aren't normally on my radar screen.