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Visualization of modifications in the human ribosome structure, a new feat for cryo electron microscopy

22-Nov-2017

Published paper using the Instruct-ERIC for cryo-EM

Ribosomes play a vital role in living beings: they are protein production stations in all cell types. These large complexes are made up of two kinds of molecules: proteins and ribosomal RNA (rRNA). Through structural studies, Bruno Klaholz's team at the IGBMC, revealed more than 130 chemical modifications of the rRNAs. Published in the journal Nature on November 15 2017, these results not only provide a better understanding of the structural and functional roles of human ribosome modifications, but also open up new therapeutic pathways for the treatment of pathologies such as cancer or certain genetic diseases in which dysregulation of protein synthesis is involved.

This study represents a major result made possible by cryo electron microscopy, a revolutionary method for the observation of macromolecules coupled with image processing and 3D reconstruction, by which the researchers were able to construct a detailed atomic model of the human ribosome. Recognized recently by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017, this technique provides the double advantage of being able to study biological samples without altering their properties and also allows to fix the orientation of the objects to enable a 3D reconstruction. This work was carried out using a high-resolution electron microscope (Titan Krios) within the European and French infrastructures, Instruct-ERIC and FRISBI, hosted at the Centre for Integrative Biology at IGBMC (Instruct-centre France 1).

Full paper can be viewed via this link.