Kuwabara T, Warashina M, Taira K
National Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research (NAIR), Agency of Industrial Science and Technology, MITI, 1-1-4 Higashi, Science City 305-8562, Tsukuba, Japan.
Trends Biotechnol. 2000 Nov;18(11):462-8. doi: 10.1016/s0167-7799(00)01498-0.
Ribozymes are small and versatile nucleic acids that can cleave RNA molecules at specific sites. However, because of the limited number of cleavable sequences on the target mRNA, in some cases conventional ribozymes do not have precise cleavage specificity. To overcome this problem, an allosteric version (a maxizyme) was developed that displayed activity and specificity in vivo. More than five custom-designed maxizymes have demonstrated sensor functions, which indicates that the technology might be broadly applicable in molecular biology and possibly in the clinic.
核酶是一类小型且多功能的核酸，能够在特定位点切割RNA分子。然而，由于靶标mRNA上可切割序列数量有限，在某些情况下，传统核酶并不具备精确的切割特异性。为克服这一问题，人们开发了一种变构形式（一种最大核酶），它在体内表现出活性和特异性。超过五种定制设计的最大核酶已展示出传感功能，这表明该技术可能在分子生物学领域广泛适用，甚至可能应用于临床。
