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Telomerase, also called terminal transferase, is a ribonucleoprotein that adds a species-dependent telomere repeat sequence to the 3' end of telomeres. A telomere is a region of repetitive sequences at each end of the chromosomes of most eukaryotes. Telomeres protect the end of the chromosome from DNA damage or from fusion with neighbouring chromosomes. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster lacks telomerase, but instead uses retrotransposons to maintain telomeres.
A pseudoknot is a nucleic acid secondary structure containing at least two stem-loop structures in which half of one stem is intercalated between the two halves of another stem. The pseudoknot was first recognized in the turnip yellow mosaic virus in 1982. Pseudoknots fold into knot-shaped three-dimensional conformations but are not true topological knots. These structures are categorized as cross (X) topology within the circuit topology framework, which, in contrast to knot theory, is a contact-based approach.
Molecular biophysics is a rapidly evolving interdisciplinary area of research that combines concepts in physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and biology. It seeks to understand biomolecular systems and explain biological function in terms of molecular structure, structural organization, and dynamic behaviour at various levels of complexity. This discipline covers topics such as the measurement of molecular forces, molecular associations, allosteric interactions, Brownian motion, and cable theory. Additional areas of study can be found on Outline of Biophysics. The discipline has required development of specialized equipment and procedures capable of imaging and manipulating minute living structures, as well as novel experimental approaches.
Adriaan "Ad" Bax is a Dutch-American molecular biophysicist. He was born in the Netherlands and is the Chief of the Section on Biophysical NMR Spectroscopy at the National Institutes of Health. He is known for his work on the methodology of biomolecular NMR spectroscopy. He is a corresponding member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society.
David S. Eisenberg is an American biochemist and biophysicist best known for his contributions to structural biology and computational molecular biology. He has been a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles since the early 1970s and was director of the UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics & Proteomics, as well as a member of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA.
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Telomerase RNA component, also known as TR, TER or TERC, is an ncRNA found in eukaryotes that is a component of telomerase, the enzyme used to extend telomeres. TERC serves as a template for telomere replication by telomerase. Telomerase RNAs differ greatly in sequence and structure between vertebrates, ciliates and yeasts, but they share a 5' pseudoknot structure close to the template sequence. The vertebrate telomerase RNAs have a 3' H/ACA snoRNA-like domain.
Helen Miriam Berman is a Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and a former director of the RCSB Protein Data Bank. A structural biologist, her work includes structural analysis of protein-nucleic acid complexes, and the role of water in molecular interactions. She is also the founder and director of the Nucleic Acid Database, and led the Protein Structure Initiative Structural Genomics Knowledgebase.
Experimental approaches of determining the structure of nucleic acids, such as RNA and DNA, can be largely classified into biophysical and biochemical methods. Biophysical methods use the fundamental physical properties of molecules for structure determination, including X-ray crystallography, NMR and cryo-EM. Biochemical methods exploit the chemical properties of nucleic acids using specific reagents and conditions to assay the structure of nucleic acids. Such methods may involve chemical probing with specific reagents, or rely on native or analogue chemistry. Different experimental approaches have unique merits and are suitable for different experimental purposes.
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Mei Hong is a Chinese-American biophysical chemist and professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is known for her creative development and application of solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR) spectroscopy to elucidate the structures and mechanisms of membrane proteins, plant cell walls, and amyloid proteins. She has received a number of recognitions for her work, including the American Chemical Society Nakanishi Prize in 2021, Günther Laukien Prize in 2014, the Protein Society Young Investigator award in 2012, and the American Chemical Society’s Pure Chemistry award in 2003.
Nicholas V. Hud is a biophysicist, biochemist, origins of life researcher, and Regents’ Professor and Julius Brown Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia.
Eric Oldfield is a British chemist, the Harriet A. Harlin Professor of Chemistry and a professor of Biophysics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is known for his work in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of lipids, proteins, and membranes; of inorganic solids; in computational chemistry, and in microbiology and parasitology. He has received a number of recognitions for his work, including the American Chemical Society's Award in Pure Chemistry, the Royal Society of Chemistry's Meldola Medal and the Biochemical Society's Colworth Medal, and he is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
References
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- 1 2 "New Helping Hands Award established – UCLA". web.archive.org. 22 May 2024. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
- ↑ "Feigon, Juli". UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
- ↑ "Juli Feigon". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
- ↑ "Juli Feigon to Receive 2019 BPS Founders Award". Biophysical Society. Biophysical Society. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
- ↑ Jiang, J; Wang, Y; Sušac, L; Chan, H; Basu, R; Zhou, ZH; Feigon, J (17 May 2018). "Structure of Telomerase with Telomeric DNA". Cell. 173 (5): 1179–1190.e13. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2018.04.038. PMC 5995583 . PMID 29775593.
- ↑ Jiang, J; Chan, H; Cash, DD; Miracco, EJ; Ogorzalek Loo, RR; Upton, HE; Cascio, D; O'Brien Johnson, R; Collins, K; Loo, JA; Zhou, ZH; Feigon, J (30 October 2015). "Structure of Tetrahymena telomerase reveals previously unknown subunits, functions, and interactions". Science. 350 (6260): aab4070. doi:10.1126/science.aab4070. PMC 4687456 . PMID 26472759.
- ↑ Zhang, Q; Kim, NK; Feigon, J (20 December 2011). "Architecture of human telomerase RNA". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 108 (51): 20325–32. Bibcode:2011PNAS..10820325Z. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1100279108 . PMC 3251123 . PMID 21844345.
- ↑ Theimer, CA; Blois, CA; Feigon, J (4 March 2005). "Structure of the human telomerase RNA pseudoknot reveals conserved tertiary interactions essential for function". Molecular Cell. 17 (5): 671–82. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2005.01.017 . PMID 15749017.
- ↑ He, Yao; Wang, Yaqiang; Liu, Baocheng; Helmling, Christina; Sušac, Lukas; Cheng, Ryan; Zhou, Z. Hong; Feigon, Juli (May 2021). "Structures of telomerase at several steps of telomere repeat synthesis". Nature. 593 (7859): 454–459. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03529-9. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 8857963 . PMID 33981033.