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Updated: Jun 22, 2026

Substrate Generation for Endonucleases of CRISPR/Cas Systems
Published on: September 8, 2012
Non-enzymatic template-directed recombination of RNAs
Sergey Y Nechaev1, Alexei V Lutay1, Valentin V Vlassov1
1Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, 8 Lavrentiev Avenue, Novosibirsk 630090, Russian Federation.
Abstract:
RNA non-enzymatic recombination reactions are of great interest within the hypothesis of the "RNA world", which argues that at some stage of prebiotic life development proteins were not yet engaged in biochemical reactions and RNA carried out both the information storage task and the full range of catalytic roles necessary in primitive self-replicating systems. Here we report on the study of recombination reaction occuring between two 96 nucleotides (nts) fragments of RNAs under physiological conditions and governed by a short oligodeoxyribonucleotide template, partially complementary to sequences within each of the RNAs. Analysis of recombination products shows that ligation is predominantly template-directed, and occurs within the complementary complex with the template in "butt-to-butt" manner, in 1- or 3- nts bulges or in 2-3 nts internal loops. Minor recombination products formed in the template-independent manner are detected as well.
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