In situ monitoring of structural changes during formation of 30S translation initiation complex by energy dissipation measurement using 27-MHz quartz-crystal microbalance.

Ribosome is a bionanomachine that facilitates an orderly translation process during protein synthesis in living cells. Real-time monitoring of conformational changes in ribosomal subunits in aqueous solution is important to understand the regulatory mechanism of protein synthesis, because conformational changes in ribosome in E. coli have been predicted to operate the switch from translation initiation to an elongation process during translation. We performed an energy dissipation measurement by using a quartz-crystal microbalance-admittance (QCM-A) technique for in situ monitoring of conformational changes in pre-30S translation initiation complex in response to the binding of fMet-tRNA(fMet) in aqueous solution. The addition of fMet-tRNA(fMet) caused changes in the physical property (increased dehydration and elasticity) in 30S ribosomal subunit in the presence of mRNA and IF2/guanosine 5'-triphosphate (GTP) on the QCM plate. Furthermore, two sequential changes triggered by the addition of fMet-tRNA(fMet) were observed in 30S ribosomal subunit bound to mRNA in the presence of IF2/GTP and IF3. These observations suggest that the structural changes in 30S ribosomal subunit caused by the binding of fMet-tRNA(fMet) with IF2/GTP in the presence of IF3 could act as a switch to regulate the orderly processing in the construction of translation initiation complex, because the structural distinction can be a guidepost in the process for the relevant biomolecules.