Special Series: Advances in the Investigation of the Structure-Function Relationship in Nucleic Acids and their Assemblies

摘要

The discovery of non-coding nucleic acids has keenly emphasized the fact that sequence information alone is not sufficient for elucidating the functions of these biopolymers and explaining their mechanism of action. Riboswitches in particular have demonstrated that function may depend on the ability of nucleic acid molecules to interact with other components of the cellular environment and to undergo conformational changes that are critical to their intended biological activity. The realization that the human genome contains a very large proportion of non-coding sequences, which could fulfill yet undiscovered functions, has increased the demand for technologies enabling the determination of structure-function relationships in nucleic acids and their assemblies. This special series is dedicated to emerging approaches based on mass spectrometry and force microscopy, which could provide the functional information necessary to complement the structural knowledge afforded by established techniques. Following the first installment, which appeared in April 2009 (Volume 91,Number 4) of Biopolymers, two contributions in this issue continue to illustrate the potential of MS-based strategies in these types of studies.