title: Non-enzymatic in vitro production of circular hammerhead ribozyme targeting the template region of human telomerase RNA.
abstract: Circular RNA is more stable than linear RNA both in vitro and in vivo because of its inaccessibility to exoribonucleases. Therefore, circularization of functional RNAs is a potentially useful methodology for designing therapeutic RNA reagents. We designed a circular hammerhead ribozyme that can cleave the template region of human telomerase RNA. This circular hammerhead ribozyme was generated by in vitro transcription followed by spontaneous self-circularization activity using the permuted intron-exon (PIE) method. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and alkaline digestion of the in vitro transcription products revealed that the circular hammerhead ribozyme could be produced by the PIE method. The purified circular hammerhead ribozyme cleaved the template region of human telomerase RNA in a magnesium-dependent manner. These results indicated that the circular hammerhead ribozyme generated by the PIE method maintained the specific feature of canonical hammerhead catalytic activity.
authors.affiliation: Division of Life Science, Department of Ecological Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology, Toyohashi, Aichi 441-8580, Japan.
authors.forename: Akinori
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ochi
authors.forename: So
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Umekage
authors.forename: Yo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012313:RNA / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D016337:RNA, Catalytic / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D000079962:RNA, Circular; D019098:Telomerase / Q000378:metabolism*; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D016337:RNA, Catalytic; D000079962:RNA, Circular; C427204:hammerhead ribozyme; C422952:telomerase RNA; D012313:RNA; D019098:Telomerase