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Pseudoknot interaction-mediated activation of type I hammerhead ribozyme: a new class of gene-therapeutic agents
Mituhiro Kuriyama1, Yoshinori Kondo, Yoshiyuki Tanaka
1a Laboratory of Molecular Transformation, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences , Tohoku University , Sendai , Miyagi , Japan.
Abstract:
Recently discovered hammerhead ribozymes that are activated through pseudoknot interactions (Watson-Crick base pairs between loops) are attractive candidates as gene-therapeutic agents because sequences of gene-therapeutic ribozymes can be designed simply based on the sequence complementarity against target RNAs. Herein, we examined if the newly found pseudoknot-type hammerhead ribozyme with type I topology is activated through the pseudoknot interactions. Substitutions of pseudoknot sequences into fully mismatched ones significantly reduced the activity of type I pseudoknot-type hammerhead ribozyme, while those with full-matched pseudoknot sequences were highly active. The results indicated that the pseudoknot interactions activated type I pseudoknot-type hammerhead ribozyme, making them suitable as gene-therapeutic agents.
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