Figure 1.

Schematic structure of the human Pax-5 gene and the SOFA-HDV Rz (A) The human Pax-5 gene located on chromosome 9 includes two alternative promoter regions (empty boxes\promoters A and B) which regulate the expression of exclusive exon regions (solid boxes) 1A and B, respectively, followed a common exons 2–10 sequence. The dotted diagonal lines indicate the spliced regions from the mature coding transcripts. (B) The structure of the SOFA-HDV Rz adopts an off (left panel) and locked configuration secured by the blocker stem in the absence of its specific mRNA target (Pax-5B). In the presence of the specific substrate (right panel) the SOFA-HDV Rz adopts a catalytically active configuration which is formed through the annealing of the ribozyme's biosensor (BS) and P1 stem (P1) to the target substrate. These structures were previously described in (18,19).