View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector RNA Ligase Structures Reveal the Basis for RNA Specificity and Conformational Changes that Drive Ligation Forward Jayakrishnan Nandakumar,1,2,3 Stewart Shuman,2 and Christopher D. Lima1,* 1 Structural Biology Program 2 Molecular Biology Program 3 Training Program in Chemical Biology Sloan-Kettering Institute, New York, NY 10021, USA *Contact:
[email protected] DOI 10.1016/j.cell.2006.08.038 0 SUMMARY 5 PO4 strand is DNA or RNA (Nandakumar and Shuman, 2004). Thus, ligase specificity might be dictated by dis- T4 RNA ligase 2 (Rnl2) and kinetoplastid RNA crimination of A form and B form secondary structures in 0 0 editing ligases exemplify a family of RNA repair duplex nucleic acid on either the 3 OH or 5 PO4 sides of 0 0 enzymes that seal 3 OH/5 PO4 nicks in duplex a nick. This model is difficult to extend to RNA ligases RNAs via ligase adenylylation (step 1), AMP that join single-stranded polynucleotide ends. 0 Two families of RNA ligases, named Rnl1 and Rnl2, transfer to the nick 5 PO4 (step 2), and attack by the nick 30OH on the 50-adenylylated strand function in the repair of ‘‘purposeful’’ RNA breaks. The Rnl1 family includes bacteriophage T4 RNA ligase 1 (Silber to form a phosphodiester (step 3). Crystal struc- et al., 1972; Uhlenbeck and Gumport, 1982; Wang et al., tures are reported for Rnl2 at discrete steps 2003) and tRNA ligases of fungi and plants (Wang and along this pathway: the covalent Rnl2-AMP Shuman, 2005; Englert and Beier, 2005).