个人简介

2012 Hellman Fellowship

研究领域

Biochemistry

The projects in my lab focus on the structure and function of non-coding regions of prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes. Two genetic elements particularly abdundant in these organisms are introns and retroelements. For example, ~50% of the human genome consists of spliceosomal introns and non-LTR retroelements. Both of these are considered to have evolved from a class of introns which orginated in bacteria billions of years ago called the group II introns. Group II introns share many structural and/or biochemical features with spliceosomal introns and non-LTR retroelements. Previously, I worked on determining the first crystal structure of a group II intron (figure 1). This revealed the active site of this ribozyme to contain two catalytic metal ions coordinated by a conserved RNA structural motif called domain 5. Since the group II and spliceosomal introns both share this RNA structure, spliceosomal introns should also have the same active site arrangement.

近期论文

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Robart AR, Chan RT, Peters JK, Rajashankar KR, Toor N "Crystal structure of a eukaryotic group II intron lariat", Nature, 2014, Chan RT, Robart AR, Rajashankar KR, Pyle AM, Toor N, "Crystal structure of a group II intron in the pre-catalytic state.", Nat Struct Mol Biol, 2012, Vol. 19, Issue 5, 555-7 [View Abstract] Toor N, Keating KS, Pyle AM, "Structural insights into RNA splicing.", Curr Opin Struct Biol, 2009, Vol. 19, Issue 3, 260-6 [View Abstract] Keating KS, Toor N, Pyle AM, "The GANC tetraloop: a novel motif in the group IIC intron structure.", J Mol Biol, 2008, Vol. 383, Issue 3, 475-81 [View Abstract] Toor N, Keating KS, Taylor SD, Pyle AM, "Crystal structure of a self-spliced group II intron.", Science, 2008, Vol. 320, Issue 5872, 77-82 [View Abstract] Toor N, Rajashankar K, Keating KS, Pyle AM, "Structural basis for exon recognition by a group II intron.", Nat Struct Mol Biol, 2008, Vol. 15, Issue 11, 1221-2 [View Abstract] Toor N, Robart AR, Christianson J, Zimmerly S, "Self-splicing of a group IIC intron: 5' exon recognition and alternative 5' splicing events implicate the stem-loop motif of a transcriptional terminator.", Nucleic Acids Res, 2006, Vol. 34, Issue 22, 6461-71 [View Abstract] Dai L, Toor N, Olson R, Keeping A, Zimmerly S, "Database for mobile group II introns.", Nucleic Acids Res, 2003, Vol. 31, Issue 1, 424-6 [View Abstract] Toor N, Zimmerly S, "Identification of a family of group II introns encoding LAGLIDADG ORFs typical of group I introns.", RNA, 2002, Vol. 8, Issue 11, 1373-7 [View Abstract] Toor N, Hausner G, Zimmerly S, "Coevolution of group II intron RNA structures with their intron-encoded reverse transcriptases.", RNA, 2001, Vol. 7, Issue 8, 1142-52 [View Abstract]