Study of transcription and cleavage in vitro of HCV with HCV specific hammerhead ribozyme / 中华传染病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the effect of specific hammerhead ribozyme (Rz) to hepatitis C virus (HCV) in vitro. Methods Rz 1 Rz 2 were designed to cleavage at 5′-NCR nucleotide positions under 136～160 and 313～337, Rz 3 was designed to cleavage at C region nucleotide position under 373～388. As a control, cleavage deficient Rzm that have A→G point mutations in the catalytic loop of the hammerhead domain. 32P-labeled transcript of target HCV RNA was incubated with gel-purified Rz ( Rz 1, Rz 2, Rz 3 and Rzm ) respectively at different concentration based on specified condition and autoradiographed after denaturing gel-electrophoresis. Results Except Rzm, Rz 1 Rz 2 Rz 3 were active at 37 ℃ and more so at higher concentration, and more so with cleavage site nearly to the HCV initial code. Conclusions The HCV specific hammerhead ribozyme can be designed in vitro, further study about cleavage in vitro and in vivo will continue.