Before the discovery of ribozymes, enzymes, which are defined as catalytic proteins, were the only known biological catalysts. In 1967, Carl Woese, Francis Crick, and Leslie Orgel were the first to suggest that RNA … See more

Although ribozymes are quite rare in most cells, their roles are sometimes essential to life. For example, the functional part of the See more

Since the discovery of ribozymes that exist in living organisms, there has been interest in the study of new synthetic ribozymes made in the laboratory. For example, artificially … See more

Ribozymes have been proposed and developed for the treatment of disease through gene therapy (3). One major challenge of using … See more

Despite having only four choices for each monomer unit (nucleotides), compared to 20 amino acid side chains found in proteins, ribozymes have diverse structures and mechanisms. In many cases they are able to mimic the mechanism used by … See more

RNA can also act as a hereditary molecule, which encouraged Walter Gilbert to propose that in the distant past, the cell used RNA as both the genetic material and the structural and catalytic molecule rather than dividing these functions between See more

Well validated naturally occurring ribozyme classes:
• GIR1 branching ribozyme
• glmS ribozyme
• Group I self-splicing intron
• Group II self-splicing intron - Spliceosome is likely derived from Group II self-splicing ribozymes. See more