Force measurements of the disruption of the nascent polypeptide chain from the ribosome by optical tweezers

Alexandros Katranidis, Wilfried Grange, Ramona Schlesinger, Theodora Choli-Papadopoulou, Dorothea Brüggemann, Martin Hegner and Georg Büldt

We show that optical tweezers are a valuable tool to study the co-translational folding of a nascent polypeptide chain at the ribosome in real-time. The aim of this study was to demonstrate that a stable and intact population of ribosomes can be tethered to polystyrene beads and that specific hook-ups to the nascent polypeptide chain by dsDNA handles, immobilized on a second bead, can be detected. A rupture force of the nascent chain in the range of 10–50 pN was measured, which demonstrates that the system is anchored to the surface in a stable and specific way. This will allow in numerous future applications to follow protein folding using much lower forces.

DOI