Functional Escherichia coli 50S ribosomal subunits
can be reconstituted from their natural rRNA and protein
components. However, when the assembly is performed with in
vitro-transcribed 23S rRNA, the reconstitution efficiency is
diminished by four orders of magnitude. We tested a variety
of chemical chaperones (compounds that are typically used for
protein folding), putative RNA chaperones (proteins) and
ribosome-targeted antibiotics (small-molecule ligands) that
might be reasoned to aid in folding and assembly. Addition of
the osmolyte trimethylamine-oxide (TMAO) and the ketolide
antibiotic telithromycin (HMR3647) to the reconstitution stimulates
its efficiency up to 100-fold yielding a substantially improved
system for the in vitro analysis of mutant ribosomes.