Our third RNALands meeting will take place in (sunny?) Paris between Tuesday 24th and Friday 27th. We will meet at Ecole Polytechnique on a loose schedule, in order to get actual work done 🙂
Tuesday, May 24th (Thomas Flowers room)
- Morning 10:30 AM-12:30 AM: Welcome address + Latest news/State of the union (Yann+Andrea)
- Afternoon 1:30PM-5:30PM: Heads up on clustering & Data collection
Wednesday, May 25th (Thomas Flowers room)
- Morning 10:30 AM-1:00 PM: Progress on sampling methods/RNAXplorer
- Afternoon 2:00 PM-??? : Departure for social event (Musée Montmartre visit + Dinner in Paris)
Thursday, May 26th (Marcel-Paul Schützenberger room)
- Morning 10:30 AM-1:00 AM: Analysis of folding landscapes
- Afternoon 2:30-3:30 PM: Talk by Hervé Isambert (Institut Curie)
RNA swiches and nanostructures under transcriptional control
We explored, using both computational and experimental approaches, the properties of small regulatory circuits primary based on RNAs and their interactions. In particular, we used synthetic biology approaches coupled to advanced RNA simulations (kinefold.curie.fr) to design efficient RNA-based regulatory modules inspired from bacterial RNA switches. These modules control RNA transcription “on the fly” through RNA-RNA antisense interactions and underline our ability to predictably encode and regulate the folding of nascent RNA in the course of transcription.We also discovered that DsrA, a small bacterial regulatory RNA, self-assembles, like many proteins do, to form long filaments as well as extended nanostructures. This hierarchy of ncRNA supramolecular structures forming at room temperature in the course of transcription relies on a self-assembly topology different from the assembly of DNA origami. The resulting RNA nanostructures store internal mechanical constraints which can be subsequently relaxed, resulting in cooperative structural switching of the RNA nanostructure.These findings further extend the already great versatility of natural RNA functions in cells, while opening up new avenues for the design of synthetic RNA/DNA nanostructures with addressable structural switching properties
Friday, May 27th (Marcel-Paul Schützenberger room)
- Morning 10:30 AM-12:30 AM: RNA coding party
- Over Lunch: Planning for the next meeting, summer/winter-school, forthcoming visits.
