Not making the cut: Techniques to prevent RNA cleavage in structural studies of RNase-RNA complexes.

RNases are varied in the RNA structures and sequences they target for cleavage and are an important type of enzyme in cells. Despite the numerous examples of RNases known, and of those with determined three-dimensional structures, relatively few examples exist with the RNase bound to intact cognate RNA substrate prior to cleavage. To better understand RNase structure and sequence specificity for RNA targets, methods used to assemble these enzyme complexes trapped in a pre-cleaved state have been developed for a number of different RNases.