exogenous nucleobase rescue of abasic substitutions

BIO.COM: Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical News, Jobs, Software, Reports, Books, Events: A research technique called 'exogenous nucleobase rescue of abasic substitutions' provides a method by which researchers are able to delete particular nucleobases from the active site of an RNA enzyme without disrupting its structure, and subsequently to restore activity by providing nucleobases in solution.

Exogenous nucleobase rescue involves substitution of RNA nucleotides of interest with abasic residues. These maintain the continuity of the RNA chain but have a single hydrogen atom in place of a critical nucleobase. The researchers insert small molecules to rescue the activity lost because of the missing nucleobase.