Searching genomes for ribozymes and riboswitches 英文参考文献.docVIP

Review Searching genomes for ribozymes and riboswitches Christian Hammann* and Eric Westhof? Addresses: *Research Group Molecular Interactions, Department of Genetics, FB 18 Naturwissenschaften, Universit?t Kassel, D-34132 Kassel, Germany. ?Architecture et Réactivité de l’ARN, Université Louis Pasteur de Strasbourg, Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, CNRS, rue René Descartes, F-67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France. Correspondence: Eric Westhof. Email: E.Westhof@ibmc.u-strasbg.fr Published: 30 April 2007 Genome Biology 2007, 8:210 (doi:10.1186/gb-2007-8-4-210) The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at /2007/8/4/210 ? 2007 BioMed Central Ltd Abstract New regulatory RNAs with complex structures have recently been discovered, among them the first catalytic riboswitch, a gene-regulatory RNA sequence with catalytic activity. Here we discuss some of the experimental approaches and theoretical difficulties attached to the identification of new ribozymes in genomes. Catalysis by RNA was discovered a quarter of a century ago. The discoveries that certain introns were capable of self- splicing [1] and that the RNA moiety of bacterial ribo- nuclease P (RNase P) on its own could process precursor tRNAs [2] were the first indications that catalytic remnants of a postulated RNA world had persisted until the present day. By the late 1980s, the catalytic scope of RNA had been extended by the discovery of the so-called small nucleolytic ribozymes (or RNA-based enzymes). This family consists of four members: the hammerhead [3], the hairpin [4,5], the hepatitis delta virus (HDV) [6,7] and the Neurospora crassa Varkud satellite (VS) [8,9] ribozymes. All the small nucleo- lytic ribozymes are involved in the processing of RNA repli- cation intermediates and catalyze a simple RNA cleavage or ligation reaction. dramatically from each other in their archi