RIBOZYMES

摘要

Synthetic single stranded RNA molecule(s) and derivatives thereof possessing highly specific endoribonuclease activity, hereindefined as ribozyme. The ribozyme cleaves target RNA sequence by hybridizing partially to the target RNA. It comprises of a hybridizing region and a catalytic region. The hybridizing region contains one or more arms of single stranded RNA. The preferred ribozyme has a catalytic region consisting of the sequence (I), in a loop structure where * represents base pairing between complementary nucleotides, X is any ribonucleotide and N1 and N2 represent ribonucleotides of complementary sequences along at least part of the length. The ribozyme cleaves target RNA after the triplet XUY, where X is any ribonucleotide, U is uracil and Y is adenine, cytosine or uracil. Methods for inactivating RNA (in vitro or in vivo), methods of preparing the ribozymes, and compositions containing the ribozymes are also described.