Experimental Resurrection of Ancestral Mammalian CPEB3 Ribozymes Reveals Deep Functional Conservation.

ABSTRACT: Self-cleaving ribozymes are genetic elements found in all domains of life, but their evolution remains poorly understood. A ribozyme located in the second intron of the cytoplasmic polyadenylation binding protein 3 gene (CPEB3) shows high sequence conservation in mammals, but little is known about the functional conservation of self-cleaving ribozyme activity across the mammalian tree of life or during the course of mammalian evolution. Here, we use a phylogenetic approach to design a mutational library and a deep sequencing assay to evaluate the in vitro self-cleavage activity of numerous extant and resurrected CPEB3 ribozymes that span over 100 My of mammalian evolution. We found that the predicted sequence at the divergence of placentals and marsupials is highly active, and this activit

SUBMITTER: Bendixsen DP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8233481 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature