title: Single-molecule RNA science.
abstract: The development of single-molecule detection and manipulation has allowed us to monitor the behavior of individual biological molecules and molecular complexes in real time. This approach significantly expands our capability to characterize complex dynamics of biological processes, allowing transient intermediate states and parallel kinetic pathways to be directly observed. Exploring this capability to elucidate complex dynamics, recent single-molecule experiments on RNA folding and catalysis have improved our understanding of the folding energy landscape of RNA and allowed us to better dissect complex RNA catalytic reactions, including translation by the ribosome.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. zhuang@chemistry.harvard.edu
authors.forename: Xiaowei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhuang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002384:Catalysis; D031541:Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer / Q000379:methods*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D012313:RNA / Q000737:chemistry*; D016337:RNA, Catalytic / Q000737:chemistry*; D012270:Ribosomes / Q000737:chemistry; D013768:Tetrahymena; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D016337:RNA, Catalytic; D012313:RNA