A widespread self-cleaving ribozyme class is revealed by bioinformatics.

Area of Science:

• Molecular Biology
• Biochemistry
• Genomics

Background:

• Ribozymes are RNA molecules with catalytic activity, similar to protein enzymes.
• Only ten classes of ribozymes are currently known in contemporary organisms.
• Ribozymes were likely more prevalent during the hypothetical RNA world era.

Purpose of the Study:

• To discover and analyze new classes of ribozymes.
• To investigate the prevalence and characteristics of the newly identified twister ribozyme.

Main Methods:

• Bioinformatic analysis of genomic data to identify potential ribozyme sequences.
• Secondary and tertiary structure prediction and analysis.
• Comparative sequence analysis to establish a consensus structure.

Main Results:

• Discovery of a novel self-cleaving ribozyme class, named twister.
• Identification of nearly 2,700 twister ribozymes across diverse bacterial and eukaryotic species.
• Characterization of the twister ribozyme's secondary structure (three stems, internal/terminal loops) and essential tertiary contacts (two pseudoknots).

Conclusions:

• The twister ribozyme represents a new class of natural RNA catalyst.
• The widespread distribution of twister ribozymes suggests significant biological roles.
• This discovery underscores the potential for diverse functions of self-cleaving RNAs in nature.