Wild-type is the optimal sequence of the HDV ribozyme under cotranscriptional conditions.

ABSTRACT: RNA viruses are responsible for a variety of human diseases, and the pathogenicity of RNA viruses is often attributed to a high rate of mutation. Self-cleavage activity of the wild-type hepatitis delta virus (HDV) ribozyme as measured in standard divalent ion renaturation assays is biphasic and mostly slow and can be improved by multiple rational changes to ribozyme sequence or by addition of chemical denaturants. This is unusual in the sense that wild type is the most catalytically active sequence for the majority of protein enzymes, and RNA viruses are highly mutable. To see whether the ribozyme takes advantage of fast-reacting sequence changes in vivo, we performed alignment of 76 genomic and 269 antigenomic HDV isolates. Paradoxically, the sequence for the ribozyme was found to be esse

SUBMITTER: Chadalavada DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2080589 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature