Tecto-GIRz: Engineered Group I Ribozyme the Catalytic Ability of Which Can Be Controlled by Self-Dimerization

RNA is a promising biomaterial for self-assembly of nano-sized structures with a wide range of applications in nanotechnology and synthetic biology. Several RNA-based nanostructures have been reported, but most are unrelated to intracellular RNA, which possesses modular structures that are sufficiently large and complex to serve as catalysts to promote sophisticated chemical reactions. In this study, we designed dimeric RNA structures based on the Tetrahymena group I ribozyme. The resulting dimeric RNAs (tecto group I ribozyme; tecto-GIRz) exhibit catalytic ability that depended on controlled dimerization, by which a pair of ribozymes can be activated to perform cleavage and splicing reactions of two distinct substrates. Modular redesign of complex RNA structures affords large ribozymes for use as modules in RNA nanotechnology and RNA synthetic biology.