Revitalization of Six Abandoned Catalytic DNA Species Reveals a Common Three-way Junction Framework and Diverse Catalytic Cores

A library containing as many as 10(16) nucleic acid candidates is typically used to isolate artificial ribozymes and deoxyribozymes (DNAzymes) in an in vitro selection experiment, with only a handful of sequences surviving many rounds of stringent selection steps. These winning species are generally the focus of interest whereas the less competitive contenders are usually not examined. Nevertheless, molecular species abandoned during the …