Part:BBa_K3806008

Theophylline-binding aptazyme

Positive control for DRIVER

Sequence and Features

Assembly Compatibility:

• 10
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[10]
• 12
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[12]
• 21
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[21]
• 23
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[23]
• 25
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[25]
• 1000
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[1000]

Usage and Biology

Ligand-dependent self-cleaving ribozymes, also known as aptazymes, have emerged in recent years as valuable tools for controlling gene expression [1]. Therefore, aptazymes can be used in large number scenarios, ranging from disease diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment to detecting small pollutants in the environment. Aptazymes can be programmed to respond to a wide range of small-molecule ligands with high sensitivity and selectivity. Newly developed methods such as DRIVER, de novo rapid in vitro evolution of RNA biosensors, enable a rapid, automated, and multiplexed engineering of aptazymes sequences to diverse small molecules [2].

In the study of Townshed et al. [2], DRIVER was used to evolve a theophylline binding aptazyme that undergoes self-cleavage in the absence of theophylline and remains uncleaved in its presence (Fig. 1). The TU Delft iGEM team 2021: (i) characterized the cleavage activity of this aptazyme using a Urea-PAGE gel following a co-transcriptional cleavage assay, (ii) showed the value of this part when used as a positive control in the setup and course of DRIVER experiments, and (iii) proved that this part (BBa_K3806008) can be used to regular gene expression in vitro (BBa_K3806010, BBa_K3806014, BBa_K3806015 and BBa_K3806016).

Fig. 1 Theophylline-binding aptazyme (BBa_K3806008). (A) 2D structure, and (B) predicted 3D structure. The structure of the aptazyme resembles that of the sTRSV hammerhead ribozyme. It is expected that the binding of the ligand to specific sequences within the large loop (30 nucleotides), affects the interactions with the smaller loop (7 nucleotides), hindering self-cleavage. The cleavage site is indicated with a red arrow.

Experimental results

Cleavage characterization of the thophylline-binding aptazyme

To assess the cleavage activity of the theophylline-binding aptazyme. The theophylline-binding aptazyme was fused to the T7 promoter (BBa_K3806011), and a transcription reactions were run for 30 minutes at 37 °C, with and without the addition of theophylline. Subsequently, a Urea-PAGE gel was run to visualize the transcription products. The bands corresponding to the uncleaved and cleaved products of the theophylline aptazyme are expected to be located at 109 bp and 89 bp, respectively. ImageJ was used to quantify the intensities (I) of the gel bands, and the cleavage fraction (f) was determined by:

It can be observed that the cleavage fraction decreases when increasing theophylline concentration (Fig. 2): 71 % at 0 mM theophylline (lane 3), 39 % at 0.5 mM theophylline (lane 4), and 4 % at 10 mM theophylline (lane 5). This results confirm the ligand-dependent cleavage activity of BBa_K3806008.

Fig. 1 Urea-PAGE gel for characterization of theophylline aptazyme cleavage fractions following a co-transcriptional cleavage assay.). Lanes: (Ladder) denatured dsRNA ladder, (1) Negative control: no DNA template. (2) gB-Theo DNA template (without T7 RNA polymerase added to the transcription reaction), transcription of gB-Theo with (3) 0 mM theophylline, (4) 0.5 mM theophylline, (5) 10 mM theophylline.

References

1. [1] Zhong, G., Wang, H., Bailey, C. C., Gao, G., & Farzan, M. (2016). Rational design of aptazyme riboswitches for efficient control of gene expression in mammalian cells. eLife, 5, e18858.
2. [2] Townshend, B., Xiang, J. S., Manzanarez, G., Hayden, E. J. and Smolke, C. (2021). A multiplexed, automated evolution pipeline enables scalable discovery and characterization of biosensors. Nat Commun, 12, 1437.