The Transformers cartoons are full of characters that gain new abilities by changing shape, turning from vehicles into robots with incredible speed. Now, scientists have found a protein in the humble gut bacterium, Escherichia coli, that uses a similar shape-shifting trick: according to a study published today in Cell, the RfaH protein quickly converts from one form that guides transcription to another involved in translation—the two key steps of protein production. Without RfaH’s transformation, the bacteria would be unable to complete the process from DNA to protein for many of their genes.
“It’s a highly significant finding, and one of the most dramatic shifts in a protein structure reported,” said Max Gottesman, a biochemist at Columbia University who was not involved in the research.
Irina Artsimovitch from Ohio State University started working on RfaH in 2000. Based on its sequence, she assumed that it would have the same structure as ...
