We are interested in understanding, at a structural level, how proteins involved in RNA metabolism interact with their RNA targets and affect downstream processes. To this end, we are studying the role of several proteins that are involved in the nuclear export and maturation of eukaryotic ribosomes and regulation of RNA splicing and editing.
We are interested in proteins that recognise dsRNA and regulate gene expression either co- or post-transcriptionally. We have solved crystal structures of a complex of the dimerisation domain of NF90/NF45 and a complex of NF90 dsRNA binding domains with dsRNA. These structures show that this multidomain complex is part of a larger family of NF45-interacting proteins and that these proteins show some sequence preferences when binding to dsRNA.