For more details of ribozymes, see Doherty and Doudna (2000).
 |
| Ribozyme | Description |
|---|---|
| Self-splicing introns | Some introns of Groups I, II and III splice themselves by an autocatalytic process. There is also growing evidence that the splicing pathway of GU-AG introns includes at least some steps that are catalyzed by snRNAs (Newman, 2001) |
| Ribonuclease P | The enzyme that creates the 5′ ends of bacterial tRNAs (see Section 10.2.2) consists of an RNA subunit and a protein subunit, with the catalytic activity residing in the RNA |
| Ribosomal RNA | The peptidyl transferase activity required for peptide bond formation during protein synthesis (Section 11.2.3) is associated with the 23S rRNA of the large subunit of the ribosome |
| tRNAPhe | Undergoes self-catalyzed cleavage in the presence of divalent lead ions |
| Virus genomes | Replication of the RNA genomes of some viruses involves self-catalyzed cleavage of chains of newly synthesized genomes linked head to tail. Examples are the plant viroids and virusoids and the animal hepatitis delta virus. These viruses form a diverse group with the self-cleaving activity specified by a variety of different base-paired structures, including a well-studied one that resembles a hammerhead. |
For more details of ribozymes, see Doherty and Doudna (2000).