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Updated: Aug 23, 2025

Isolation of Translating Ribosomes Containing Peptidyl-tRNAs for Functional and Structural Analyses
Published on: February 25, 2011
Mirror-image T7 transcription of chirally inverted ribosomal and functional RNAs
Yuan Xu1,2,3, Ting F Zhu2,3
1School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Beijing Frontier Research Center for Biological Structure, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Abstract:
To synthesize a chirally inverted ribosome with the goal of building mirror-image biology systems requires the preparation of kilobase-long mirror-image ribosomal RNAs that make up the structural and catalytic core and about two-thirds of the molecular mass of the mirror-image ribosome. Here, we chemically synthesized a 100-kilodalton mirror-image T7 RNA polymerase, which enabled efficient and faithful transcription of the full-length mirror-image 5S, 16S, and 23S ribosomal RNAs from enzymatically assembled long mirror-image genes. We further exploited the versatile mirror-image T7 transcription system for practical applications such as biostable mirror-image riboswitch sensor, long-term storage of unprotected kilobase-long l-RNA in water, and l-ribozyme-catalyzed l-RNA polymerization to serve as a model system for basic RNA research.
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