Box-shaped ribozyme octamer formed by face-to-face dimerization of a pair of square-shaped ribozyme tetramers

Naturally occurring ribozymes with defined three-dimensional (3D) structures serve as promising platforms for the design and construction of artificial RNA nanostructures. We constructed a hexameric ribozyme nanostructure by face-to-face dimerization of a pair of triangular ribozyme trimers, unit RNAs of which were derived from the Tetrahymena group I ribozyme. In this study, we have expanded the dimerization strategy to a square-shaped ribozyme tetramer by introducing four pillar units. The resulting box-shaped nanostructures, which contained eight ribozyme units, can be assembled from either four or two components of their unit RNAs.(c) 2022, The Society for Biotechnology, Japan. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

In this study, a hexameric ribozyme nanostructure was constructed by dimerizing a pair of triangular ribozyme trimers, while the dimerization strategy was expanded to a square-shaped ribozyme tetramer with four pillar units. The resulting box-shaped nanostructures contain eight ribozyme units and can be assembled from different numbers of unit RNAs.