NUCLEIC ACID CATALYSTS: COMPARING THE MECHANISMS OF DNA AND RNA ENZYMES

Anvesh Annadanam, Raghunandan Avula, Nathan Buchbinder, Jonathan Chen, Sarah Cuneo, Ruth Fong, Michael Granovetter, Paul Lee, Tyler Nisonoff, Renuka Reddy, Meera Trivedi, Han-Wei Wu

Advisor: Dr. Adam G. Cassano
Assistant: Jyotsna Ramachandran

ABSTRACT

DNA and RNA enzymes tend to act more efficiently in the presence of metal cofactor ions, such as Mg 2+ . Whether other ions with similar chemical and structural properties catalyze DNA and RNA as successfully as magnesium ions has come into question. Using gel electrophoresis, the activity of the 10-23 DNAzyme was tested with strontium ions and cobalt hexamine. Strontium effectively enhanced the activity of the DNAzyme while cobalt hexamine does not appear to be as effective. This suggests that ligand exchange is a more important cofactor property compared to size since strontium has a larger ionic radius than magnesium while cobalt hexamine lacks the ability to exchange ligands, whereas magnesium does.