1. Trans-cleaving hammerhead ribozymes with tertiary stabilizing motifs: in vitro and in vivo activity against a structured viroid RNA
- Author
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Universitat Politècnica de València. Instituto Universitario Mixto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas - Institut Universitari Mixt de Biologia Molecular i Cel·lular de Plantes, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Generalitat Valenciana, Carbonell, Alberto, Flores Pedauye, Ricardo, Gago Zachert, Selma Persida, Universitat Politècnica de València. Instituto Universitario Mixto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas - Institut Universitari Mixt de Biologia Molecular i Cel·lular de Plantes, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Generalitat Valenciana, Carbonell, Alberto, Flores Pedauye, Ricardo, and Gago Zachert, Selma Persida
- Abstract
[EN] Trans-cleaving hammerheads with discontinuous or extended stem I and with tertiary stabilizing motifs (TSMs) have been tested previously against short RNA substrates in vitro at low Mg2+ concentration. However, the potential of these ribozymes for targeting longer and structured RNAs in vitro and in vivo has not been examined. Here, we report the in vitro cleavage of short RNAs and of a 464-nt highly structured RNA from potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) by hammerheads with discontinuous and extended formats at submillimolar Mg2+. Under these conditions, hammerheads derived from eggplant latent viroid and peach latent mosaic viroid (PLMVd) with discontinuous and extended formats, respectively, where the most active. Furthermore, a PLMVd-derived hammerhead with natural TSMs showed activity in vivo against the same long substrate and interfered with systemic PSTVd infection, thus reinforcing the idea that this class of ribozymes has potential to control pathogenic RNA replicons.
- Published
- 2011