Crystal structure of Pistol, a class of self-cleaving ribozyme

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1611191114
• Publication Date: 2017-01-18T03:01:19Z
• Authors: Laura A. Nguyen; Jimin Wang; Thomas A. Steitz
• Keywords: Ligase ribozyme; Cleavage (geology); Hairpin ribozyme; Phosphodiester bond; Mammalian CPEB3 ribozyme

Significance Based on the “RNA world” theory, ribozymes likely carried out biochemical reactions long before organisms evolved to use protein enzymes as biocatalysts. The continued discovery of new structures for small self-cleaving has shed light conserved mechanisms in evolution, such acid–base catalysis self-cleavage reaction. Here, we present crystal structure a newly discovered class called Pistol and how it uses phosphoester transfer mechanism self-cleavage. results presented here suggest that an evolutionarily cleavage is like other ribozymes, Twister, Hammerhead, Hairpin, Hepatitis Delta Virus ribozymes.