GIR1 Branching Ribozyme - GIR1 Catalyzes Three Different Reactions

GIR1 Catalyzes Three Different Reactions

In vitro, DiGIR1 catalyses three different reactions. The first one consists in hydrolysis of the scissil phosphate at the IPS site. This is the cleavage reaction observed with the full-length intron and several length variants with a relative low rate. The hydrolytic cleavage is irreversible and is considered as an in vitro artefact resulting from a miss-folding of the catalytic site to present the branch nucleotide (BP) correctly for the reaction. The second reaction,the natural one, is the branching reaction, in which a transesterification at the IPS site results in the cleavage of the RNA with a 3'OH and a downstream lariat cap made by joining of the first and the third nucleotide by a 2'-5' phosphodiester bond.

These products are the only products observed by analysis of cellular RNA. This branching reaction is in equilibrium with a third one: a ligation reaction. It is a very efficient reaction and it tends to mask the branching reaction during the in vitro branching experiments with the full-length intron and length variants that include more than 166 nucleotides upstream of the IPS.