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Updated: Aug 4, 2026

Nanomanipulation of Single RNA Molecules by Optical Tweezers
Published on: August 20, 2014
Identification of the catalytic subdomain of the VS ribozyme and evidence for remarkable sequence tolerance in the
Vanita D Sood1, Richard A Collins
1Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A8, USA.
Abstract:
We show here that the ribozyme domain of the Neurospora VS ribozyme consists of separable upper and lower subdomains. Deletion analysis demonstrates that the entire upper subdomain (helices III/IV/V) is dispensable for site-specific cleavage activity, providing experimental evidence that the active site is contained within the lower subdomain and within the substrate itself. We demonstrate an important role in cleavage activity for a region of helix VI called the 730 loop. Surprisingly, several loop sequences, sizes, and structures at this position can support site-specific cleavage, suggesting that a variety of non-Watson-Crick structures, rather than a specific loop structure, in this region of the ribozyme can contribute to formation of the active site.
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