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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Comparative RNA Structure Analysis of Nascent and Mature Transcripts in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Published on: February 27, 2026
Determination of intracellular RNA folding rates using self-cleaving RNAs
Peter Y Watson1, Martha J Fedor
1Department of Chemical Physiology, The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology,The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA.
Abstract:
We have developed a system that relies on RNA self-cleavage to report quantitatively on assembly of RNA structures in vivo. Self-cleaving RNA sequences are inserted into mRNAs or snoRNAs and expressed in yeast under the control of a regulated promoter. Chimeric RNAs that contain self-cleaving ribozymes turn over faster than chimeric RNAs that contain a mutationally inactivated ribozyme by an amount that reflects the rate at which the ribozyme folds and self-cleaves. A key feature of this system is the choice of assay conditions that selectively monitor intracellular assembly and self-cleavage by suppressing further ribozyme activity during the analysis.
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