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Updated: Aug 12, 2026

Nanomanipulation of Single RNA Molecules by Optical Tweezers
Published on: August 20, 2014
Hammerhead ribozyme engineering
N Usman1, L Beigelman, J A McSwiggen
1Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals Inc, 2950 Wilderness Place, Boulder, CO 80301, USA.
Abstract:
Of all the catalytic RNAs the hammerhead ribozyme is the most chemically modified and structurally studied. Such studies have resulted in improvements in the nuclease resistance of ribozymes, reductions in their size, and improvements in their catalytic efficiency. These improvements have facilitated the use of ribozymes for therapeutic applications, and have allowed us to study how the three-dimensional structure of the enzyme and its array of functional groups interact to create a catalytic site where a phosphodiester bond is cleaved.
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