Talk:Hepatitis delta virus ribozyme

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Only human ribozyme

 * The HDV ribozyme is the only known ribozyme in humans

This is contradicted by the existence of the ribosome, RNase P, U2/U6 (maybe) and similar. Narayanese (talk) 14:05, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Good spotting! Does the reference actually say anything like that? I'd be inclined to keep it if possible. RNA is a good journal and the title/abstract seem relevant. --Paul (talk) 17:49, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've had a quick look, the closest quote I can find is 'This work shows that natural selection has made delta ribozyme is ideally suited to the human cell environment'. I think it's probably worth keeping.--Paul (talk) 17:54, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Likely the cited section was Delta ribozyme possesses several unique features, all of which are related to the fact that it is the only catalytic RNA motif that has been discovered in humans. Thus, we postulate that delta self-cleaving ribozymes have evolved so as to possess optimal activity in this cellular environment. For example, delta ribozyme functions naturally at low magnesium concentrations (1 mM), and is the only ribozyme known to be fully active in the presence of calcium (Doherty & Doudna, 2000). This contrasts with all other ribozymes that are currently attracting interest as tools for gene inactivation as these are all derived from RNA species retrieved from nonmammalian cells. It appears the authors don't consider ribonucleoproteins with catalytic RNA cores as ribozymes, which seems against common usage of the term to me. Narayanese (talk) 18:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. OK -- I'm not sure how that howler got past the referees. --Paul (talk) 19:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)