Before the discovery of ribozymes,RNA had been proposed to function as a catalyst,based on the discovery that RNA folded into high-ordered structures as protein did.This hypothesis was confirmed in the 1980s,after the discovery of Tetrahymena group I intron and RNase P ribozyme.There have been about ten ribozymes identified during the past thirty years,as well as the fact that ribosomes function as ribozymes.Advances have been made in understanding the structures and functions of ribozymes,with numerous crystal structures resolved in the past years.Here we review the structure-function relationship of both small and large ribozymes,especially the structural basis of their catalysis.
WU QiJia,HUANG Lin & ZHANG Yi State Key Laboratory of Virology,College of Life Sciences,Wuhan University,Wuhan 430072,China
