Original title: From static structures to dynamic landscapes: cryo-EM redefines RNA biology
Shekhar Jadhav, Spandan Saha, Qingbin Shang, Marco Marcia · September 2026
RNA molecules carry out many tasks in biology by shifting through different moving shapes, or conformations, instead of staying frozen in one pose. Seeing these changing shapes has been a major challenge in molecular biology. To explore this, researchers reviewed how an imaging technique called cryoEM visualizes RNA across its active shapes at near atomic resolution. The tool works by rapidly freezing samples to capture individual RNA particles in their natural, diverse states, which computer tools then reconstruct. Looking at 8 case studies, the authors found that cryoEM reveals hidden RNA motions like folding, ligand-dependent switching, and cooperative assembly. New experimental and computer techniques solve past hurdles in sample preparation, construct design, vitrificationFreezing a sample so quickly that water becomes glass-like, preserving the molecule's natural shape without ice crystals., and data processing. These methods turn visual structural variation into discrete and continuous landscapes of RNA movement, laying the foundation for RNA-targeted medicines and dynamic RNA nanodevices.
Imagine a row of runners on a track, each frozen at a different point in the same race. A single photo shows one runner in one pose, but it tells you nothing about the strides before or after. If you photograph the whole row and sort the poses in order, you can reconstruct the entire race. In this paper, the runners are RNA molecules, and the microscope is the camera that captures them all at once.
RNA molecules do their jobs by changing shape, and until now we could only see them frozen in one pose. Cryo-EM lets scientists watch many poses at once, revealing how RNA switches, folds, and assembles. That matters for designing drugs that lock RNA in the right shape and for building molecular machines out of RNA.
This is a review article, so it reports no new experimental data. The eight case studies are illustrative, not a comprehensive survey. The abstract acknowledges that studying dynamic RNAs remains challenging, and the promised 'molecular movies' are a future goal, not a current routine capability.
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From static structures to dynamic landscapes: cryo-EM redefines RNA biology — Shekhar Jadhav, Spandan Saha, Qingbin Shang et al.
Abstract licence: CC0
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.