Skip to main content
Nucleic Acids Research logoLink to Nucleic Acids Research
. 1991 Mar 25;19(6):1285–1289. doi: 10.1093/nar/19.6.1285

Antigenomic Hepatitis delta virus ribozymes self-cleave in 18 M formamide.

J B Smith 1, G Dinter-Gottlieb 1
PMCID: PMC333855  PMID: 1709487

Abstract

The ribozymes derived from Hepatitis delta virus (HDV) RNA appear unique in their sequence requirements for self-cleavage. While truncating the 1679 nucleotide antigenomic HDV RNA, we have characterized the cleavage requirements of a number of ribozymes of intermediate length. Two of these, containing 186 and 106 HDV nucleotides respectively, cleaved to completion in the presence of 18 M formamide. The 186 nucleotide ribozyme also cleaved to completion in 10 M urea. Removal of an additional 10 nts from the 3' terminus of the 106 nt ribozyme resulted in a loss of the ability to cleave in high concentrations of the denaturants. The interaction of nucleotides near the cleavage site with a sequence within this 10 base region may confer unusual stability on these ribozymes.

Full text

PDF
1286

Images in this article

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Chen P. J., Kalpana G., Goldberg J., Mason W., Werner B., Gerin J., Taylor J. Structure and replication of the genome of the hepatitis delta virus. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Nov;83(22):8774–8778. doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.22.8774. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Forster A. C., Symons R. H. Self-cleavage of plus and minus RNAs of a virusoid and a structural model for the active sites. Cell. 1987 Apr 24;49(2):211–220. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(87)90562-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Forster A. C., Symons R. H. Self-cleavage of virusoid RNA is performed by the proposed 55-nucleotide active site. Cell. 1987 Jul 3;50(1):9–16. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(87)90657-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Hampel A., Tritz R. RNA catalytic properties of the minimum (-)sTRSV sequence. Biochemistry. 1989 Jun 13;28(12):4929–4933. doi: 10.1021/bi00438a002. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Kuo M. Y., Goldberg J., Coates L., Mason W., Gerin J., Taylor J. Molecular cloning of hepatitis delta virus RNA from an infected woodchuck liver: sequence, structure, and applications. J Virol. 1988 Jun;62(6):1855–1861. doi: 10.1128/jvi.62.6.1855-1861.1988. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Kuo M. Y., Sharmeen L., Dinter-Gottlieb G., Taylor J. Characterization of self-cleaving RNA sequences on the genome and antigenome of human hepatitis delta virus. J Virol. 1988 Dec;62(12):4439–4444. doi: 10.1128/jvi.62.12.4439-4444.1988. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Rosenstein S. P., Been M. D. Self-cleavage of hepatitis delta virus genomic strand RNA is enhanced under partially denaturing conditions. Biochemistry. 1990 Sep 4;29(35):8011–8016. doi: 10.1021/bi00487a002. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Sarver N., Cantin E. M., Chang P. S., Zaia J. A., Ladne P. A., Stephens D. A., Rossi J. J. Ribozymes as potential anti-HIV-1 therapeutic agents. Science. 1990 Mar 9;247(4947):1222–1225. doi: 10.1126/science.2107573. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Sharmeen L., Kuo M. Y., Dinter-Gottlieb G., Taylor J. Antigenomic RNA of human hepatitis delta virus can undergo self-cleavage. J Virol. 1988 Aug;62(8):2674–2679. doi: 10.1128/jvi.62.8.2674-2679.1988. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Uhlenbeck O. C. A small catalytic oligoribonucleotide. Nature. 1987 Aug 13;328(6131):596–600. doi: 10.1038/328596a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Wu H. N., Lai M. M. RNA conformational requirements of self-cleavage of hepatitis delta virus RNA. Mol Cell Biol. 1990 Oct;10(10):5575–5579. doi: 10.1128/mcb.10.10.5575. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Zaug A. J., Grosshans C. A., Cech T. R. Sequence-specific endoribonuclease activity of the Tetrahymena ribozyme: enhanced cleavage of certain oligonucleotide substrates that form mismatched ribozyme-substrate complexes. Biochemistry. 1988 Dec 13;27(25):8924–8931. doi: 10.1021/bi00425a008. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Zuker M. On finding all suboptimal foldings of an RNA molecule. Science. 1989 Apr 7;244(4900):48–52. doi: 10.1126/science.2468181. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Nucleic Acids Research are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

RESOURCES