The major interests projects of the Department are traditionally focused on ribosome structure and mechanism of translation, viral and cellular RNA structure and functions, and RNA-protein interactions. The Laboratory of Protein Synthesis Regulation (Dr. I.N.Shatsky and co-workers) is studying non-canonical mechanisms of post-transcriptional gene expression. In particular, this group has shed light on the mechanism of internal initiation of translation for picornoviruses. Initiation factors that determine this process have been identified. The Group of Prof. A.A.Bogdanov (Dr. O.A.Dontsova and co-workers) has developed a new strategy of photoaffinity labeling of ribosomes. The detailed structure of ribosome decoding center and tertiary structure of 5S rRNA in the ribosome were evaluated by means of this technique.

In the Laboratory of Gene Molecular Biology (Dr. A.B.Vartapetian and co-workers) properties of a nuclear protein prothymosin a involved in proliferation of mammalian cells were studied. Several functionally important determinants in the prothymosin a molecule were identified, including the nuclear localization signal. The ability of mammalian prothymosin a to covalently link tRNA was demonstrated. Data supporting a protein-priming model of initiation of picornavirus RNA replication were obtained.

The Laboratory of Nucleic Acid-Protein Interactions (Dr. Yu.F.Drygin and co-workers) concentrates on investigation of isolation and characterization of uridilylpolynucleotide - (5'P ® O)-tyrosine phosphodiesterase, the enzyme that split the covalent bond between VPg and picornoviral RNA. Several viral RNA and plasmid DNA covalently bound with proteins have been characterized.

Among new projects of the Department there are a study of yeast telomerase, elaboration of improved techniques for receptor-mediated gene delivery into somatic cells, application of SELEX technique to investigation RNA-protein interactions, and development of new methods for incorporation of photoactive groups into selected sites of large RNAs.

1. Dontsova O., Tishkov V., Dokudovskaya S., Bogdanov A., Doring T., Rinke-Appel J., Thamm S., Greuer B. and Brimacombe R. Stem-loop IV of 5S ribosomal RNA lies close to the peptidyl transferase center. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (1994) 91, 4125-4129.

2. Dokudovskaya S., Dontsova O., Shpanchenko O., Bogdanov A., Brimacombe R. Loop IV of 5S Ribosomal RNA has contacts both to Domains II and to Domain V of the 23S RNA. RNA (1996) 2, 146-152.

3. Pestova T.V., Hellen C.U.T. and Shatsky I.N. Canonical eukaryotic initiation factors determine initiation of translation by internal ribosome entry. Mol. Cell. Biol. (1996) 16, 6859-6869.

4. Baranov P.V., Dokudovskaya S.S., Oretskaya T.S., Dontsova O.A., Bogdanov A.A., Brimacombe R. A new technique for the characterization of long-range tertiary contacts in large RNA molecules: insertion of a photolabel at a selected position in 16S rRNA within the Escherichia coli ribosome. Nucleic Acids Res. (1997) 25, 2266-2273.

5. Rubtsov Y.P., Zolotukhin A.S., Vorobjev I.A., Chichkova N.V., Pavlov N.A., Karger E.M., Evstafieva A.G., Felber B.K. and Vartapetian A.B. Mutational analysis of human prothymosin a reveals a bipartite nuclear localization signal. FEBS Lett. (1997) 413, 135-141.