Role of S-turn2 in the structure, dynamics, and function of mitochondrial ribosomal A-site. A bioinformatics and molecular dynamics simulation study.

The mRNA decoding site (A-site) in the small ribosomal subunit controls fidelity of the translation process. Here, using molecular dynamics simulations and bioinformatic analyses, we investigated the structural dynamics of the human mitochondrial A-site (native and A1490G mutant) and compared it with the dynamics of the bacterial A-site. We detected and characterized a specific RNA backbone configuration, S-turn2, which occurs in the human mitochondrial but not in the bacterial A-site. Mitochondrial and bacterial A-sites show different propensities to form S-turn2 that may be caused by different base-pairing patterns of the flanking nucleotides. Also, the S-turn2 structural stability observed in the simulations supports higher accuracy and lower speed of mRNA decoding in mitochondria in comparison with bacteria. In the mitochondrial A-site, we observed collective movement of stacked nucleotides A1408·C1409·C1410, which may explain the known differences in aminoglycoside antibiotic binding affinities toward the studied A-site variants.