Figure 3.

Sequences of the initially random (N₄₀) catalytic regions of key deoxyribozymes described in this report. To create each functional deoxyribozyme, the catalytic region is flanked by two Watson-Crick binding arms that are simply covaried with the relevant substrate sequence. For 13PB2, which requires C^G at the cleavage site, the G is base-paired to the last nucleotide of the corresponding binding arm. For all of the other deoxyribozymes, the two X^G nucleotides at the cleavage site are both unpaired, whereas all other substrate nucleotides are base-paired to the binding arms. The four deoxyribozymes that are useful for each of the four possible X^G sites are highlighted in yellow (7VK55 cleaves either A^G or C^G, where M = A or C).