Resolving Individual Components in Protein-RNA Complexes Using Small-Angle X-ray Scattering Experiments

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) of protein-RNA complexes has developed into an efficient and economical approach for determining low-resolution shapes of particles in solution. Here, we demonstrate a mutliphase volumetric modeling approach capable of resolving individual components within a low-resolution shape. Through three case studies, we describe the SAXS data collecting strategies, premodeling analysis, and computational methods required for deconstructing complexes into their respective components. This chapter presents an approach using the programs ScAtter and MONSA and custom scripts for averaging and aligning of multiple independent modeling runs. The method can image small (7 kDa) masses within the context of complex and is capable of visualizing ligand-induced conformational changes. Nevertheless, computational algorithms are not without error, and we describe specific considerations during SAXS data reduction and modeling to mitigate possible false positives.