Fq. Huang et M. Yarus, VERSATILE 5'-PHOSPHORYL COUPLING OF SMALL AND LARGE MOLECULES TO AN RNA, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Statesof America, 94(17), 1997, pp. 8965-8969
A Ca2+-requiring catalytic RNA is shown to create 5' phosphate-phospha
te linkages with all nucleotides and coenzymes including CoA, nicotina
mide adenine dinucleotide phosphate, thiamine phosphate, thiamine pyro
phosphate, and flavin mononucleotide. In addition to these small molec
ules, macromolecules such as RNAs with 5'-diphosphates, and nonnucleot
ide molecules like N epsilon-phosphate arginine and 6-phosphate glucon
ic acid also react. That is, the self-capping RNA isolate 6 is an appa
rently universal 5' phosphate-linker, reacting with any nucleophile co
ntaining an unblocked phosphate, These RNA reactions demonstrate a uni
que RNA catalytic capability and imply versatile and specific posttran
scriptional RNA modification by RNA catalysis.