CRYSTALLIZATION AND PRELIMINARY DIFFRACTION STUDIES OF THE STRUCTURAL DOMAIN-E OF THERMUS-FLAVUS 5S RIBOSOMAL-RNA

The ribosomal 5S RNA is an essential constituent of the large ribosomal subunit, To overcome the difficulties of crystallizing large RNA molecules such as 5S rRNAs, we decided to divide the 5S rRNA in five domains A through E to determine their structure, Recently we determined the crystal structural of the helical domain A. Here we report the crystallization of the chemically synthesized domain E of the Thermus flavus 5S rRNA. The crystal form is trigonal with unit cell dimensions: a = b = 42.80 Angstrom and c = 162.20 Angstrom. Diffraction-data to 2.8 Angstrom have been recorded and the structure solution is currently underway by means of MLR and MAD techniques.