title: Hammerhead ribozyme engineering.
abstract: Of all the catalytic RNAs the hammerhead ribozyme is the most chemically modified and structurally studied. Such studies have resulted in improvements in the nuclease resistance of ribozymes, reductions in their size, and improvements in their catalytic efficiency. These improvements have facilitated the use of ribozymes for therapeutic applications, and have allowed us to study how the three-dimensional structure of the enzyme and its array of functional groups interact to create a catalytic site where a phosphodiester bond is cleaved.
authors.affiliation: Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals Inc, 2950 Wilderness Place, Boulder, CO 80301, USA.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Usman
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Beigelman
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: McSwiggen
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D005818:Genetic Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D016337:RNA, Catalytic / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D016337:RNA, Catalytic