Persistence length of mRNA-ribosome complexes

Value 0.79 nm
Organism Bacteria Escherichia coli
Reference Brandt F, Etchells SA, Ortiz JO, Elcock AH, Hartl FU, Baumeister W. The native 3D organization of bacterial polysomes. Cell. 2009 Jan 23 136(2):261-71. supplementary online material p.6 top paragraphPubMed ID19167328
Primary Source Vanzi F, Takagi Y, Shuman H, Cooperman BS, Goldman YE. Mechanical studies of single ribosome/mRNA complexes. Biophys J. 2005 Sep89(3):1909-19.PubMed ID15951374
Method Primary source abstract: "A novel optical method was built to control the position of the laser trap along the microscope optical axis at 2 nm resolution, facilitating measurement of the force-extension relationship for poly(U)."
Comments Supplementary online material p.6 top paragraph: "If [investigators] assume that the mRNA in such conditions (of zero external applied force) will behave as a Worm Like Chain (Kratky and Porod, 1949) with a persistence length of 0.79 nm measured experimentally for mRNA-ribosome complexes (primary source), [they] can find the number nucleotides that gives a root mean squared value of the end-to-end distance equal to 7.35 nm."
Entered by Uri M
ID 109074