NMR hydrogen exchange study of miR156:miR156* duplexes

RNAs exhibit distinct structural and dynamic features required for proper function. The hydrogen-bonded imino protons of RNAs are a probe of the conformational transition and dynamic feature. MicroRNAs originate from primary transcripts containing hairpin structures. The levels of mature miR156 influence the flowering time of plants. To understand the molecular mechanism of biological function of $miR156:miR156^*$ duplex, we performed hydrogen exchange study on the model RNAs mimicking two phenotypes of $miR156:miR156^*$, $miR156:miR156^*$ (m-miR156a) and $miR156:miR156^*$ (m-miR156g) duplexes. This study found that the internal bulge of m-miR156a destabilized the neighboring base-pairs, whereas the bulge structure of m-miR156g did not affect the thermal stabilities of the neighboring base-pairs.