Team:Waterloo

Self-excising ribozymes are RNA sequences with catalytic properties which allow them to remove themselves and regions which they flank from an RNA sequence. These are introns; however, with ribozyme self-excision the introns are removed without the aid of protein enzymes. In our project we use self-excising ribozymes to remove an extraneous sequence, an intron, which interrupts the coding sequence GFP. Upon successful removal of the intron, the two halves of GFP should be ligated together and be able to be translated into a fully functional GFP. By showing functional fusion proteins can be assembled in-vivo using this system we open up possibilities such as the addition of recombination sites DNA level to allow gene shuffling and regulatory sequences which function at the DNA level but removed at the RNA level to create functional proteins.

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