Nucleic Acids and Their Binding Partners: Structural and Mechanistic Insights
A special issue of Cells (ISSN 2073-4409). This special issue belongs to the section "Cell Nuclei: Function, Transport and Receptors".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2026 | Viewed by 89
Special Issue Editor
Interests: structural biology; nucleic acid-binding proteins; membrane proteins; protein conformation; molecular chaperone; enzymes; cryogenic electron microscopy; biochemistry; molecular biology
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Nucleic acids are at the heart of life’s most fundamental processes, from storing genetic information to guiding cellular machinery. How they interact with proteins, small molecules, or even other nucleic acids determines much of their function, yet these interactions can be surprisingly dynamic and complex. Advances in structural biology are providing us with unprecedented glimpses into these interactions and dynamics. Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM), crystallography, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) are revealing detailed snapshots of nucleic acid complexes, while molecular dynamics simulations let us explore the motions and flexibility that often dictate their behaviour.
This Special Issue aims to highlight studies that shed light on how nucleic acids recognise and interact with their partners. We welcome contributions that provide new structural insights, uncover mechanisms including regulation by modification in nucleic acids and proteins, or present innovative computational approaches backed up with in vitro or in vivo studies, to understand nucleic acid dynamics. Reviews of high-throughput in vivo and in vitro approaches to protein-nucleic acid interactions in the structural and computational techniques are also welcome. By bringing together the experimental and computational perspectives, we hope to offer a clearer and integrated view of how nucleic acids function in the context of their binding partners, and how structural information can help explain their roles in biology.
Dr. Rashmi Panigrahi
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- cryo-EM
- NMR
- AFM
- molecular dynamics
- nucleic acids
- nucleic acid-protein complexes
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