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| Hepatitis delta virus ribozyme |
 |
| Type: |
Gene; ribozyme; |
| 2° structure: |
Published; PubMed |
| Seed alignment: |
Griffiths-Jones SR |
| Avg length: |
88.8 nucleotides |
| Avg identity: |
95% |
|
The hepatitis delta virus (HDV) ribozyme is a non-coding RNA that is necessary for viral replication and is thought to be the only catalytic RNA known to be required for viability of a human pathogen. The ribozyme acts to process the RNA transcripts to unit lengths in a self-cleavage reaction. The ribozyme is found to be active in vivo in the absence of any protein factors and is the fastest known naturally occurring self-cleaving RNA.[1]
The crystal structure of this ribozyme has been solved using X-ray crystallography and shows five helical segments connected by a double pseudoknot.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Kuo, MY; Sharmeen L, Dinter-Gottlieb G, Taylor J (1988). "Characterization of self-cleaving RNA sequences on the genome and antigenome of human hepatitis delta virus". J Virol 62: 4439–4444. PMID 3184270.
- ^ Ferré-D'Amaré AR, Zhou K, Doudna JA (1998). "Crystal structure of a hepatitis delta virus ribozyme". Nature 395 (6702): 567–74. doi:10.1038/26912. PMID 9783582.
[edit] External links
