Screening assays to identify artificial glmS ribozyme activators.

Ribsowitches are putative drug targets as they often regulate the expression of essential bacterial genes. This finding necessitates the development of suitable assays, at best high-throughput (HT) compatible, which allow the screening of compound libraries for riboswitch activation. Here, we describe a HT-compatible fluorescence-based screening assay employing a minimal core motif of the Bacillus subtilis glmS riboswitch and the metabolite-induced self-cleavage assay using the full-length glmS ribozyme of Staphylococcus aureus for the identification of artificial molecules activating this regulatory RNA.