Journal
VIRUSES-BASEL
Volume 6, Issue 6, Pages 2376-2391Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/v6062376
Keywords
ribozyme; RNase P; gene targeting; cytomegalovirus
Categories
Funding
- Block Grant Predoctoral Fellowship (UC-Berkeley)
- University of California
- National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) [2011CB504800]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [31100128, 81030031]
- National Mega Project on Major Drug Development of China
- National Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) Program of China
- Technology R & D Program of Jiangsu Province, China [BG20077035, BG2008662]
- NIH [RO1-AI041927, RO1-DE014842]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
RNase P ribozyme can be engineered to be a sequence-specific gene-targeting agent with promising application in both basic research and clinical settings. By using an in vitro selection system, we have previously generated RNase P ribozyme variants that have better catalytic activity in cleaving an mRNA sequence than the wild type ribozyme. In this study, one of the variants was used to target the mRNA encoding human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) essential transcription factor immediate-early protein 2 (IE2). The variant was able to cleave IE2 mRNA in vitro 50-fold better than the wild type ribozyme. A reduction of about 98% in IE2 expression and a reduction of 3500-fold in viral production was observed in HCMV-infected cells expressing the variant compared to a 75% reduction in IE2 expression and a 100-fold reduction in viral production in cells expressing the ribozyme derived from the wild type sequence. These results suggest that ribozyme variants that are selected to be highly active in vitro are also more effective in inhibiting the expression of their targets in cultured cells. Our study demonstrates that RNase P ribozyme variants are efficient in reducing HCMV gene expression and growth and are potentially useful for anti-viral therapeutic application.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available