An RNA Mapping Strategy to Identify Ribozyme-Accessible Sites on the Catalytic Subunit of Mouse Telomerase.

Song,  Min Sun; Lee,  Seong Wook

Genomics Inform > Volume 5(1); 2007 > Article

Brief Communication

Genomics & Informatics 2007;5(1): 32-35.

An RNA Mapping Strategy to Identify Ribozyme-Accessible Sites on the Catalytic Subunit of Mouse Telomerase.

Department of Molecular Biology, BK21 Graduate Program for RNA Biology, Institute of Nanosensor and Biotechnology, Dankook University, Seoul 140-714, Korea. SWL0208@dankook.ac.kr

Abstract

Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) is an enzymatic ribonucleoprotein that prolongs the replicative life span of cells by maintaining protective structures at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes. Telomerase activity is highly up-regulated in 85-90% of human cancers, and is predominately regulated by hTERT expression. In contrast, most normal somatic tissues in humans express low or undetectable levels of telomerase activity. This expression profile identifies TERT as a potential anticancer target. By using an RNA mapping strategy based on a trans-splicing ribozyme library, we identified the regions of mouse TERT (mTERT) RNA that were accessible to ribozymes. We found that particularly accessible sites were present downstream of the AUG start codon. This mTERTspecific ribozyme will be useful for validation of the RNA replacement as cancer gene therapy approach in mouse model with syngeneic tumors.

Keywords: cancer; gene therapy; group I intron; mTERT; RNA replacement; trans-splicing ribozyme; RNA mapping