Specific cleavage of two target sequences of the tobacco mosaic virus RNA by a di-component ribozyme.

Two di-component ribozymes RZ34 and RZ13, the simplest forms of multi-component ribozymes, by ligating mono-ribozymes RZ3 and RZ4 and RZ1 and RZ3 were constructed, respectively. The in vitro results indicate that each di-component ribozyme is able to cleave two different TMV transcripts, with the specificity and efficiency similar to their mono-ribozyme counterparts. Possible effects on the specificity and efficiency by temperature and the positions of the component-ribozymes in these di-component ribozymes were also studied.