Craig A. Riley and Niles Lehman *

Department of Chemistry, Portland State University, P.O. Box 751, Portland, OR 97207 USA

^* Correspondence:  Niles Lehman;   (503) 725-8769 (phone);    (503) 725-9525 (fax);
E-mail:  niles@pdx.edu

RNA strand exchange through phosphor-nucleotidyl transfer reactions is an intrinsic chemistry promoted by
group I intron ribozymes. We show here that Tetrahymena and Azoarcus ribozymes can promote RNA
oligonucleotide recombination in either two-pot or one-pot schemes. These ribozymes bind one oligonucleotide,
cleave following a guide sequence, transfer the 3' portion of the oligo to their own 3' end, bind a second oligo, and catalyze another transfer reaction to generate recombinant oligos. Recombination is most effective with the Azoarcus ribozyme in a single reaction vessel in which over 75% of the second oligo can be rapidly converted to recombinant product. The Azoarcus ribozyme can also create a new functional RNA, a hammerhead ribozyme, which can be constructed via recombination and then immediately promote its own catalysis in a homogeneous milieu, mimicking events in a prebiotic soup.

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euchromatin: "the most active portion of the genome within the cell nucleus".