Journal: Nat Commun / Year: 2025 Title: Structurally heterogeneous ribosomes cooperate in protein synthesis in bacterial cells. Authors: Karla Helena-Bueno / Sophie Kopetschke / Sebastian Filbeck / Lewis I Chan / Sonia Birsan / Arnaud Baslé / Maisie Hudson / Stefan Pfeffer / Chris H Hill / Sergey V Melnikov / Abstract: Ribosome heterogeneity is a paradigm in biology, pertaining to the existence of structurally distinct populations of ribosomes within a single organism or cell. This concept suggests that ...Ribosome heterogeneity is a paradigm in biology, pertaining to the existence of structurally distinct populations of ribosomes within a single organism or cell. This concept suggests that structurally distinct pools of ribosomes have different functional properties and may be used to translate specific mRNAs. However, it is unknown to what extent structural heterogeneity reflects genuine functional specialization rather than stochastic variations in ribosome assembly. Here, we address this question by combining cryo-electron microscopy and tomography to observe individual structurally heterogeneous ribosomes in bacterial cells. We show that 70% of ribosomes in Psychrobacter urativorans contain a second copy of the ribosomal protein bS20 at a previously unknown binding site on the large ribosomal subunit. We then determine that this second bS20 copy appears to be functionally neutral. This demonstrates that ribosome heterogeneity does not necessarily lead to functional specialization, even when it involves significant variations such as the presence or absence of a ribosomal protein. Instead, we show that heterogeneous ribosomes can cooperate in general protein synthesis rather than specialize in translating discrete populations of mRNA.
A: 10604.544 Å / B: 14912.64 Å / C: 4660.2 Å α=β=γ: 90.0 °
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Supplemental data
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Sample components
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Entire : Tomogram of cryo-FIB milled Psychrobacter urativorans grown at ph...
Entire
Name: Tomogram of cryo-FIB milled Psychrobacter urativorans grown at physiological conditions
Components
Cell: Tomogram of cryo-FIB milled Psychrobacter urativorans grown at physiological conditions
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Supramolecule #1: Tomogram of cryo-FIB milled Psychrobacter urativorans grown at ph...
Supramolecule
Name: Tomogram of cryo-FIB milled Psychrobacter urativorans grown at physiological conditions type: cell / ID: 1 / Parent: 0
Source (natural)
Organism: Psychrobacter urativorans (bacteria)
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Experimental details
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Structure determination
Method
cryo EM
Processing
electron tomography
Aggregation state
cell
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Sample preparation
Buffer
pH: 7
Vitrification
Cryogen name: ETHANE
Sectioning
Focused ion beam - Instrument: OTHER / Focused ion beam - Ion: OTHER / Focused ion beam - Voltage: 13 / Focused ion beam - Current: 0.01 / Focused ion beam - Duration: 600 / Focused ion beam - Temperature: 92 K / Focused ion beam - Initial thickness: 2000 / Focused ion beam - Final thickness: 140 Focused ion beam - Details: The value given for _em_focused_ion_beam.instrument is FEI Aquilos2. This is not in a list of allowed values {'OTHER', 'DB235'} so OTHER is written into the XML file.
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Electron microscopy
Microscope
TFS KRIOS
Image recording
Film or detector model: GATAN K3 BIOCONTINUUM (6k x 4k) / Average electron dose: 3.6 e/Å2
Electron beam
Acceleration voltage: 300 kV / Electron source: FIELD EMISSION GUN
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