The catalytic domain of human hepatitis delta virus RNA. A proton nuclear magnetic resonance study

We have obtained and analyzed the 600 MHz proton NMR spectra of a 74-mer RNA derived from the catalytic domain of hepatitis delta virus genomic RNA (HDV RNA) to determine its secondary structure. Deconvolution of the NMR spectrum obtained at 32°C indicates that part of the 74-mer RNA molecule may exist in multiple conformations in equilibrium. The major conformer contains two A-U base pairs and 14 ± 2 G-C base pairs. It appears to contain no standard G-U base pairs. Our NMR melting study suggests that this conformer has at least two stem-loop regions. One of the regions has been identified to be a tetra-loop. We have assigned five imino proton resonances of the tetraloop stem. Our data is consistent with the pseudoknot model of Perrotta and Been.