Award Details:
Award Type: Catalyst
Award #: C-064
Proposal Title: Towards the Visualization of Spliceosomal Intermediates
PI(s): Yuan He (NU), Joseph Piccirilli and Jonathan Staley (UChicago)
Award Amount: $250,000.00
Application Cycle: Round 20 (Fall 2015)
Award Start Date: February 1, 2016
Award End Date: January 31, 2018
Abstract:
Our genes are interrupted by nonsense that must be removed during the expression of our genes into proteins, the workhorses of the cell. In gene expression, a gene is first transcribed into a messenger made of RNA, which is similar to DNA. Then, the nonsense is excised and the instructions are spliced together. Lastly, the message is translated to protein. Each step is catalyzed by a macromolecular machine. An understanding of how these machines work requires their visualization at each stage of operation. For over a decade, the transcriptional and translational machinery have been visualized at numerous stages, whereas the first visualization of the splicing machinery has only just been reported. This advance has been enabled by exciting technical breakthroughs in electron microscopy. With our complementary expertise in electron microscopy and splicing machinery, we are uniquely positioned to exploit these breakthroughs to visualize the operation of the splicing machine.