TY - JOUR AU - Shao, Yu AU - Wu, Susan AU - Chan, Chi Yu AU - Klapper, Jessie R. AU - Schneider, Erasmus AU - Ding, Ye PY - 2007 DA - 2007/11/30 TI - A structural analysis of in vitro catalytic activities of hammerhead ribozymes JO - BMC Bioinformatics SP - 469 VL - 8 IS - 1 AB - Ribozymes are small catalytic RNAs that possess the dual functions of sequence-specific RNA recognition and site-specific cleavage. Trans-cleaving ribozymes can inhibit translation of genes at the messenger RNA (mRNA) level in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic systems and are thus useful tools for studies of gene function. However, identification of target sites for efficient cleavage poses a challenge. Here, we have considered a number of structural and thermodynamic parameters that can affect the efficiency of target cleavage, in an attempt to identify rules for the selection of functional ribozymes. SN - 1471-2105 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-8-469 DO - 10.1186/1471-2105-8-469 ID - Shao2007 ER -