Nucleic Acid Conformation: Crystal Structure of a Naturally Occurring Dinucleoside Phosphate (UpA)

THEORIES of the molecular structure of nucleic acids have so far been based on evidence from the crystal structures of monomeric units such as nucleosides and mononucleotides, the interpretation of diffraction patterns of oriented nucleic acid fibres and molecular model building1–6. Such approaches can help to suggest structures of periodic molecules such as helices, but they are insufficient for predicting and understanding nonrepetitive structures such as the loops in transfer RNA (tRNA), presumably associated with many of the functions of tRNA. To understand the geometry of nucleic acids and possible constraints on their conformation, it is therefore essential to know the detailed conformation of the sugar residues and the conformational relationship between the sugar residue, the base and the phosphate group7–9. The simplest molecule which contains this information is a 3´5´-dinucleoside phosphate. We now report the structure of uridine-3´,5´-adenosine phosphate (UpA). This is the first naturally occurring dinucleoside phosphate whose crystal structure has been determined by X-ray diffraction. The only other dinucleoside phosphate with known crystal structure is adenosine-2´,5´-uridine phosphate10, but it does not have the naturally occurring 3´5´ sugar phosphate linkage.