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1: Biochemistry. 2006 Mar 7;45(9):2767-71.Click here to read Click here to read Links

Adenosine is inherently favored as the branch-site RNA nucleotide in a structural context that resembles natural RNA splicing.

Zelin E, Wang Y, Silverman SK.

Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 600 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.

We previously used in vitro selection to identify the 7S11 deoxyribozyme, which catalyzes formation of 2',5'-branched RNA using a branch-site adenosine nucleophile and a 5'-triphosphate electrophile. An unanswered question is whether the use of branch-site adenosine is inherently preferred or a chance event during the particular selection experiment. Here we have found that deoxyribozymes newly selected to use uridine as the branch-site RNA nucleotide in a structural context that resembles natural RNA splicing instead prefer a branch-site adenosine, although adenosine was never available during the selection itself. Our results support a chemical basis for nature's choice of the branch-site nucleotide, which is almost always adenosine in group II introns and the spliceosome.

PMID: 16503631 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

PMCID: PMC2515823