Brave new RNA world
- Center for Molecular Biology of RNA, Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA
- Corresponding author: harry{at}nuvolari.ucsc.edu
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
In 1995, you could still find, in the opening paragraphs of manuscripts and grant applications from my lab and others, the phrase “In the absence of a crystal structure for the ribosome….,” by way of rationalizing any number of biochemical studies aimed at figuring out the three-dimensional locations of things inside the ribosome, and ultimately its mechanism. We no longer have this excuse. Today, the Protein [sic] Data Bank, or PDB, lists several dozen high-resolution crystal structures of the ribosome. Needless to say, this has dramatically transformed the ribosome field. When the first ribosome crystal structures were announced at the meeting in Helsingør, Denmark, in June, 1999, I anticipated an occasion of great celebration; after all, we had waited some 40 years for this magical moment. Instead, the atmosphere was like that of a funeral, whose participants were paying their somber respects to the deaths of their careers. There was …
