Purine riboswitch

Purine riboswitch
Identifiers
SymbolPurine
RfamRF00167
Other data
RNA typeCis-reg; riboswitch
Domain(s)Bacteria
SOSO:0000035
PDB structuresPDBe

A purine riboswitch is a sequence of ribonucleotides in certain messenger RNA (mRNA) that selectively binds to purine ligands via a natural aptamer domain. This binding causes a conformational change in the mRNA that can affect translation by revealing an expression platform for a downstream gene, or by forming a translation-terminating stem-loop. The ultimate effects of such translational regulation often take action to manage an abundance of the instigating purine, and might produce proteins that facilitate purine metabolism or purine membrane uptake.