Ribozymes articles from across Nature Portfolio

Non-equilibrium conditions at heated water-air interfaces can model Hadean microenvironments. Here, the authors show that such conditions enable one-pot synthesis, strand release and folding of functional RNAs similar to modern biological systems.

The Tetrahymena ribozyme changes conformations to perform its self-splicing function. Here, the authors capture six structural snapshots of ribozyme during the second step of self-splicing from a single specimen, revealing the structural basis of how it promotes and coordinates self-splicing reactions.

How primordial cells could achieve inheritance of encapsulated components is still an open question. Here, the authors show that ribozymes can assemble in active forms and replicate in populations of membrane vesicles thanks to freeze-thaw cycles.

Neutral networks, which are sets of genotypes connected via single mutations that share the same phenotype, are important for evolvability. Here, the authors provide experimental evidence of a neutral network in an RNA enzyme using a high-throughput assay and deep learning.

Evolink, a method developed to co-evolve structurally adjacent but sequence-distant sites in molecular machines, was used in concert with computational modeling to evolve an improved tethered ribosome variant.

Ribosome associated complex (RAC)- HSP70 (Ssb in yeast) is a eukaryotic chaperone system involved in co-translational folding. Here, authors report structures of RAC-containing ribosomal complexes, which suggest a working model for the dynamic actions of RAC-Ssb during the process.