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Measuring The Dynamic Surface Accessibility Of Rna With The Small Paramagnetic Molecule Tempol, Vincenzo Venditti, Neri Niccolai, Samuel E. Butcher

Vincenzo Venditti

The surface accessibility of macromolecules plays a key role in modulating molecular recognition events. RNA is a complex and dynamic molecule involved in many aspects of gene expression. However, there are few experimental methods available to measure the accessible surface of RNA. Here, we investigate the accessible surface of RNA using NMR and the small paramagnetic molecule TEMPOL. We investigated two RNAs with known structures, one that is extremely stable and one that is dynamic. For helical regions, the TEMPOL probing data correlate well with the predicted RNA surface, and the method is able to distinguish subtle variations in atom …