Second paper from the Berman lab has been accepted for publication!

In this paper we corroborate previous findings that implicate a role for LARP1 in regulating the translation of TOP mRNAs. We characterize the C-terminal DM15 region of LARP1 as a novel cap binding domain using x-ray crystallography. We further use binding, competition, and immunoprecipitation data to support our structural models and show that LARP1 competes with translation initiation factor eIF4E for access to the 5' cap of TOP mRNAs, thereby blocking formation of the translation initiation complex and regulating TOP mRNA translation.