Crystal structures of an unmodified bacterial tRNA reveal intrinsic structural flexibility and plasticity as general properties of unbound tRNAs

Ubiquitous across all domains of life, tRNAs constitute an essential component of cellular physiology, carry out an indispensable role in protein synthesis, and have been historically the subject of a wide range of biochemical and biophysical studies as prototypical folded RNA molecules. Although conformational flexibility is a well-established characteristic of tRNA structure, it is typically regarded as an adaptive property exhibited in...