The observed rates of ribozyme cleavage reactions are strongly dependent on the nature of
the metal ion present. Metal ions can thereby exhibit a stronger inhibiting or accelerating …

The cleavage of RNA can be accelerated by a number of factors. These factors include an
acidic group (Lewis acid) or a basic group that aids in the deprotonation of the attacking …

Evidence for a two-metal ion mechanism for cleavage of the HH16 hammerhead ribozyme is
provided by monitoring the rate of cleavage of the RNA substrate as a function of La3+ …

The roles of metals in the phosphodiester bond cleavage reaction performed by the
hammerhead ribozyme are under investigation. In this study, the apparent affinities and the …

Revised Manuscript Received September 5, 1995® abstract: Thermodynamics of RNA
cleavage/ligation were measured for a self-cleaving hammerhead ribozyme in the presence …

Recently, Murray et al.(Chem Biol, 1998, 5: 587–595) found that the hammerhead ribozyme
does not require divalent metal ions for activity if incubated in high (≥ 1 M) concentrations of …

Ribozymes can catalyze a large variety of different reactions, but very few mechanistic
aspects are understood in detail. 1-9 It is evident that RNAs are always associated with …

Since the discovery of catalytic RNA molecules (ribozymes), intense research has been
devoted to understand their structure and activity. Among RNA molecules, the large …

Although the hammerhead reaction proceeds most efficiently in divalent cations, cleavage in
4 M LiCl is only∼ 10-fold slower than under standard conditions of 10 mM MgCl2 (Murray et …

Background: Divalent metal ions serve as structural as well as catalytic cofactors in the
hammerhead ribozyme reaction. The natural cofactor in these reactions is Mg (II), but its …