Selma Gago

Peripheral regions of natural hammerhead ribozymes greatly increase their self-cleavage activity

Natural hammerhead ribozymes are mostly found in some viroid and viroid‐like RNAs and catalyze their cis cleavage during replication. Hammerheads have been manipulated to act in trans and assumed to have a similar catalytic behavior in this artificial context. However, we show here that two natural cis‐acting hammerheads self‐cleave much faster than trans‐acting derivatives and other reported artificial hammerheads. Moreover, modifications of the peripheral loops 1 and 2 of one of these natural hammerheads induced a >100‐fold reduction of the self‐cleavage constant, whereas engineering a trans‐acting artificial hammerhead into a cis derivative by introducing a loop 1 had no effect. These data show that regions external to the central conserved core of natural hammerheads play a role in catalysis, and suggest the existence of tertiary interactions between these peripheral regions. The interactions, determined by the sequence and size of loops 1 and 2 and most likely of helices I and II, must result from natural selection and should be studied in order to better understand the hammerhead requirements in vivo.

Extremely High Mutation Rate of a Hammerhead Viroid

The mutation rates of viroids, plant pathogens with minimal non-protein-coding RNA genomes, are unknown. Their replication is mediated by host RNA polymerases and, in some cases, by hammerhead ribozymes, small self-cleaving motifs embedded in the viroid. By using the principle that the population frequency of nonviable genotypes equals the mutation rate, we screened for changes that inactivated the hammerheads of Chrysanthemum chlorotic mottle viroid. We obtained a mutation rate of 1/400 per site, the highest reported for any biological entity. Such error-prone replication can only be tolerated by extremely simple genomes such as those of viroids and, presumably, the primitive replicons of the RNA world. Our results suggest that the emergence of replication fidelity was critical for the evolution of complexity in the early history of life.

Viroids: the minimal non-coding RNAs with autonomous replication.

Viroids are small (246–401 nucleotides), non‐coding, circular RNAs able to replicate autonomously in certain plants. Viroids are classified into the families Pospiviroidae and Avsunviroidae, whose members replicate in the nucleus and chloroplast, respectively. Replication occurs by an RNA‐based rolling‐circle mechanism in three steps: (1) synthesis of longer‐than‐unit strands catalyzed by host DNA‐dependent RNA polymerases forced to transcribe RNA templates, (2) processing to unit‐length, which in family Avsunviroidae is mediated by hammerhead ribozymes, and (3) circularization either through an RNA ligase or autocatalytically. Disease induction might result from the accumulation of viroid‐specific small interfering RNAs that, via RNA silencing, could interfere with normal developmental pathways.

Rolling-circle replication of viroids, viroid-like satellite RNAs and hepatitis delta virus: Variations on a theme

Viroids and viroid-like satellite RNAs from plants, and the human hepatitis delta virus (HDV) RNA share some properties that include small size, circularity and replication through a rolling-circle mechanism. Replication occurs in different cell compartments (nucleus, chloroplast and membrane-associated cytoplasmatic vesicles) and has three steps: RNA polymerization, cleavage and ligation. The first step generates oligomeric RNAs that result from the reiterative transcription of the circular templates of one or both polarities, and is catalyzed by either the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of the helper virus on which viroid-like satellite RNAs are functionally dependent, or by host DNA-dependent RNA polymerases that, remarkably, viroids and HDV redirect to transcribe RNA templates. Cleavage is mediated by host enzymes in certain viroids and viroid-like satellite RNAs, while in others and in HDV is mediated by cis-acting ribozymes of three classes. Ligation appears to be catalyzed mainly by host enzymes. Replication most likely also involves many other non-catalytic proteins of host origin and, in HDV, the single virus-encoded protein.

Viroid replication: rolling-circles, enzymes and ribozymes.

Viroids, due to their small size and lack of protein-coding capacity, must rely essentially on their hosts for replication. Intriguingly, viroids have evolved the ability to replicate in two cellular organella, the nucleus (family Pospiviroidae) and the chloroplast (family Avsunviroidae). Viroid replication proceeds through an RNA-based rolling-circle mechanism with three steps that, with some variations, operate in both polarity strands: i) synthesis of longer-than-unit strands catalyzed by either the nuclear RNA polymerase II or a nuclear-encoded chloroplastic RNA polymerase, in both instances redirected to transcribe RNA templates, ii) cleavage to unit-length, which in the family Avsunviroidae is mediated by hammerhead ribozymes embedded in both polarity strands, while in the family Pospiviroidae the oligomeric RNAs provide the proper conformation but not the catalytic activity, and iii) circularization. The host RNA polymerases, most likely assisted by additional host proteins, start transcription from specific sites, thus implying the existence of viroid promoters. Cleavage and ligation in the family Pospiviroidae is probably catalyzed by an RNase III-like enzyme and an RNA ligase able to circularize the resulting 5′ and 3′ termini. Whether a chloroplastic RNA ligase mediates circularization in the family Avsunviroidae, or this reaction is autocatalytic, remains an open issue.

Structure–function analysis of the ribozymes of chrysanthemum chlorotic mottle viroid: a loop–loop interaction motif conserved in most natural hammerheads

Loop–loop tertiary interactions play a key role in the folding and catalytic activity of natural hammerhead ribozymes. Using a combination of NMR spectroscopy, site-directed mutagenesis and kinetic and infectivity analyses, we have examined the structure and function of loops 1 and 2 of the (+) and (–) hammerheads of chrysanthemum chlorotic mottle viroid RNA. In both hammerheads, loop 1 is a heptanucleotide hairpin loop containing an exposed U at its 5′ side and an extrahelical U at its 3′-side critical for the catalytic activity of the ribozyme in vitro and for viroid infectivity in vivo, whereas loop 2 has a key opened A at its 3′-side. These structural features promote a specific loop–loop interaction motif across the major groove. The essential features of this tertiary structure element, base pairing between the 5′ U of loop 1 and the 3′ A of loop 2, and interaction of the extrahelical pyrimidine of loop 1 with loop 2, are likely shared by a significant fraction of natural hammerheads.

Effects of the trinucleotide preceding the self-cleavage site on eggplant latent viroid hammerheads: differences in co- and post-transcriptional self-cleavage may explain the lack of trinucleotide AUC in most natural hammerheads

Eggplant latent viroid (ELVd) can form stable hammerhead structures in its (+) and (−) strands. These ribozymes have the longest helices I reported in natural hammerheads, with that of the ELVd (+) hammerhead being particularly stable (5/7 bp are G-C). Moreover, the trinucleotide preceding the self-cleavage site of this hammerhead is AUA, which together with GUA also found in some natural hammerheads, deviate from the GUC present in most natural hammerheads including the ELVd (−) hammerhead. When the AUA trinucleotide preceding the self-cleavage site of the ELVd (+) hammerhead was substituted by GUA and GUC, as well as by AUC (essentially absent in natural hammerheads), the values of the self-cleavage rate constants at low magnesium of the purified hammerheads were: ELVd-(+)-AUC≈ELVd-(+)-GUC>ELVd-(+)-GUA> ELVd-(+)-AUA. However, the ELVd-(+)-AUC hammerhead was the catalytically less efficient during in vitro transcription, most likely because of the transient adoption of catalytically-inactive metastable structures. These results suggest that natural hammerheads have been evolutionary selected to function co-transcriptionally, and provide a model explaining the lack of trinucleotide AUC preceding the self-cleavage site of most natural hammerheads. Comparisons with other natural hammerheads showed that the ELVd-(+)-GUC and ELVd-(+)-AUC hammerheads are the catalytically most active in a post-transcriptional context with low magnesium.

Trans-cleaving hammerhead ribozymes with tertiary stabilizing motifs: in vitro and in vivo activity against a structured viroid RNA

Trans-cleaving hammerheads with discontinuous or extended stem I and with tertiary stabilizing motifs (TSMs) have been tested previously against short RNA substrates in vitro at low Mg2+ concentration. However, the potential of these ribozymes for targeting longer and structured RNAs in vitro and in vivo has not been examined. Here, we report the in vitro cleavage of short RNAs and of a 464-nt highly structured RNA from potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) by hammerheads with discontinuous and extended formats at submillimolar Mg2+. Under these conditions, hammerheads derived from eggplant latent viroid and peach latent mosaic viroid (PLMVd) with discontinuous and extended formats, respectively, where the most active. Furthermore, a PLMVd-derived hammerhead with natural TSMs showed activity in vivo against the same long substrate and interfered with systemic PSTVd infection, thus reinforcing the idea that this class of ribozymes has potential to control pathogenic RNA replicons.

An artificial chimeric derivative of Citrus viroid V involves the terminal left domain in pathogenicity

The recently described Citrus viroid V (CVd-V) induces, in Etrog citron, mild stunting and very small necrotic lesions and cracks, sometimes filled with gum. As Etrog citron plants co-infected with Citrus dwarfing viroid (CDVd) and CVd-V show synergistic interactions, these host-viroid combinations provide a convenient model to identify the pathogenicity determinant(s). The biological effects of replacing limited portions of the rod-like structure of CVd-V with the corresponding portions of CDVd are reported. Chimeric constructs were synthesized using a novel polymerase chain reaction-based approach, much more flexible than those based on restriction enzymes used in previous studies. Of the seven chimeras (Ch) tested, only one (Ch5) proved to be infectious. Plants infected with Ch5 showed no symptoms and, although this novel chimera was able to replicate to relatively high titres in singly infected plants, it was rapidly displaced by either CVd-V or CDVd in doubly infected plants. The results demonstrate that direct interaction(s) between structural elements in the viroid RNA (in this case, the terminal left domain) and as yet unidentified host factors play an important role in modulating viroid pathogenicity. This is the first pathogenic determinant mapped in species of the genus Apscaviroid.

Hammerhead Ribozymes Against Virus and Viroid RNAs

The hammerhead ribozyme, a small catalytic motif that promotes self-cleavage of the RNAs in which it is found naturally embedded, can be manipulated to recognize and cleave specifically in trans other RNAs in the presence of Mg2+. To be really effective, hammerheads need to operate at the low concentration of Mg2+ existing in vivo. Evidence has been gathered along the last years showing that tertiary stabilizing motifs (TSMs), particularly interactions between peripheral loops, are critical for the catalytic activity of hammerheads at physiological levels of Mg2+. These TSMs, in two alternative formats, have been incorporated into a new generation of more efficient trans-cleaving hammerheads, some of which are active in vitro and in planta when targeted against the highly structured RNA of a viroid (a small plant pathogen). This strategy has potential to confer protection against other RNA replicons, like RNA viruses infecting plants and animals.