Cross-ligation and exchange reactions catalyzed by hairpin ribozymes

The negative strand of the satellite RNA of tobacco ringspot virus (sTobRV(-)) contains a hairpin catalytic domain that shows self-cleavage and self-ligation activities in the presence of magnesium ions. We describe here that the minimal catalytic domain can catalyze a cross-ligation reaction between two kinds of substrates in trans. The cross-ligated product increased when the reaction temperature was decreased during the reaction from 37 degrees C to 4 degrees C. A two-stranded hairpin ribozyme, divided into two fragments between G45 and U46 in a hairpin loop, showed higher ligation activity than the nondivided ribozyme. The two stranded ribozyme also catalyzed an exchange reaction of the 3'-portion of the cleavage site.