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长期以来,人们一直认为所有的生物催化剂都是蛋白质(也就是酶).然而,分子生物学的新发展已经推翻了这一经典的观念. 一九八二年,美国科罗拉多州波尔多大学的Thomas Cech及其同事在研究原生生物四膜虫(Tetrahymena thermophila)的rRNA转录后加工问题时发现,四膜虫前体rRNA能够自己催化自己的剪接反应.该反应不需酶的催化,也不需要ATP,而只需NH_4~+、Mg~(2+)和鸟苷.Cech把这种能够催化自身剪接反应的核酸叫做“酶性核酸”(ribozyme)。Cech的这一发现被誉为近十年来分子生物学的最令人兴奋的发现之一.
It has long been believed that all biocatalysts are proteins (ie, enzymes), however, new developments in molecular biology have overturned this classic notion. In 1982, Thomas Cech, of the University of Cologne, Colorado And colleagues studied the post-transcriptional processing of rRNA in the Tetrahymena thermophila and found that Tetrahymena pre-rRNA could catalyze its own splicing reaction without the need for enzymatic catalysis or ATP, But only NH_4 ~ +, Mg ~ (2+) and guanosine.Cech calls this nucleic acid capable of catalyzing its own splicing reaction called “ribozyme.” This discovery by Cech has been hailed as one of the most exciting discoveries in molecular biology in the last decade.