一、题目：Cotranscriptional folding kinetics of Riboswitch

二、主讲人：孙婷婷

三、时间：2017年11月21日（星期二），下午3:15

四、地点：A4-218 (四友之家)

内容摘要：We develop an effective model based on master equation to investigate the cotranscriptional folding of long RNA sequences. This new model can predict the folding kinetics based on reducing ensemble of conformations. We apply the model to the analysis of cotranscriptional folding of pbuE riboswitch We found good agreement between the theoretical prediction and the experimental data for the population of the terminator conformation as a function of force. Our analysis showed that the aptamer structure was first destabilized with an increasing force because aptamer can switch to terminator hairpin. We also predicted the different folding pathways for the riboswitch with and without adenine. Without adenine, aptamer structure may not form. If it appears, it emerges as a short-lived transient state instead of a stable (metastable) intermediate state. With and without the presence of adenine, we found  contrastingly different pathways. From the predicted extension-time curves, we identified a series of important structures in the pulling process. The predicted relative time scales between the different structures agree well with the experiment. Our results provide several new insights into RNA cotranscriptional folding

主讲人简介：浙江大学物理系博士、浙江工商大学副教授、硕士生导师、美国密苏里州立大学哥伦比亚分校访问学者。主要从事高分子凝聚态物理理论研究，主要包括蛋白质的构象及其动力学研究，RNA分子折叠动力学研究。已经在J Chem Phys，Polymer, Biophys Chem等期刊上发表SCI论文20余篇。