Molecular Mechanisms of Splicing: Spliceosome Machinery and Pre-Messenger RNA Splicing Cycle

Can the beauty of one machine help us better understand ourselves, viruses and possibly hundreds of human diseases?

This molecular visualization project synthesizes into a coherent whole remarkable progress in mechanistic understanding of pre-messenger RNA splicing, the removal of non-coding introns, which is a central step in gene expression.

Since elucidation of the first atomic model of the spliceosome in 2015 by the Yigong Shi laboratory, the molecular machine which choreographs splicing has been deciphered across the entirety of its assembly, reaction & disassembly cycle. The following modules provide context and chronicle this progress in the movie:

• introduction to the splicing process
• brief historical perspective
• visualization of spliceosome organization & design principles
• model of splicing at RNA level & overall mechanistic model
• evolutionary considerations
• splicing & disease

Comprehensive 3D visualization explores dynamic and intricate changes in the spliceosome as it directs a single splicing event. This movie is about a machine and its unit of work, which can only be described as beautiful. It is based on more than a dozen atomic models of the spliceosome solved by the Yigong Shi group of Tsinghua University.

The video was funded and is Copyrighted (©2020) by the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Structural Biology (http://icsb.tsinghua.edu.cn, email: icsb@tsinghua.edu.cn). Special thanks to Drs. Ruixue Wan, Chuangye Yan, and Yigong Shi, for scientific discussions and feedback during production.

Also view the musical montage entitled: “Beautiful Machine: Choreography of RNA Splicing by the Spliceosome” (https://youtu.be/w0WY0pA1cMM ), edited by Yan Liang, Ph.D., https://beautyofscience.com

Scientific Visualization
Script & Narration
Production by
Dan W. Nowakowski, Ph.D.
http://nmolecularsystems.com
project_enquiries@nmolecularsystems.com

Видео Molecular Mechanisms of Splicing: Spliceosome Machinery and Pre-Messenger RNA Splicing Cycle канала Beauty of Science