Sequence Diversity, Metal Specificity, and Catalytic Proficiency of Metal-Dependent Phosphorylating DNA Enzymes

Although DNA has not been found responsible for biological catalysis, many artificial DNA enzymes have been created by "in vitro selection." Here we describe a new selection approach to assess the influence of four common divalent metal ions (Ca(2+), Cu(2+), Mg(2+), and Mn(2+)) on sequence diversity, metal specificity, and catalytic proficiency of self-phosphorylating deoxyribozymes. Numerous autocatalytic DNA sequences were isolated, a …