Premium
On Facts and Artefacts: The Difficulty to Evaluate an Artificial Nuclease
Author(s) -
Pitsch Stefan,
Scheffer Ute,
Hey Markus,
Strick Andreas,
Göbel Michael W.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
helvetica chimica acta
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.74
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1522-2675
pISSN - 0018-019X
DOI - 10.1002/hlca.200390316
Subject(s) - chemistry , nuclease , rna , cleavage (geology) , enantiomer , nucleotide , selectivity , combinatorial chemistry , catalysis , dna , stereochemistry , biochemistry , gene , geotechnical engineering , fracture (geology) , engineering
A number of promising synthetic catalysts for the hydrolytic degradation of RNA have been developed in recent years. Some of them show remarkable selectivity for pyrimidine nucleotides. The general problem of all these studies is to distinguish between real effects and artefacts caused by traces of contaminating natural ribonucleases. We show that methods representing the current state of the art (diethylpyrocarbonate treatment, sterilization, ultrafiltration, etc. ) do not sufficiently protect against severe artefacts. However, an incorruptible assay could be found by comparing the cleavage of RNA and its mirror image. Enantiomeric RNA is completely resistant to enzymatic degradation, whereas achiral nonpeptide catalysts, by fundamental laws of symmetry, cannot distinguish between enantiomers and will induce exactly the same cleavage pattern with both substrates.