Felix Spenkuch
The more than hundred nucleoside modifications discovered to date in RNA[12], are thought to sustain, optimize and modulate the functional conformation of RNA[13]. In this work modified, as well as unmodified doubly fluorescent labeled tRNAs are synthesized in vitro by splinted ligation. The influence of modifications and/or protein binding on tRNA conformation is investigated using distance-dependent single molecule FRET[14] and microscale thermophoresis, a method which can detect structural changes by observing an altered movement in a microscopic temperature gradient.
