The field of small self-cleaving nucleolytic ribozymes has been invigorated by the recent discovery of the twister, twister-sister, pistol and hatchet ribozymes. We report on the crystal structure of the env25 pistol ribozyme, which adopts a compact tertiary architecture stabilized by an embedded pseudoknot fold. The G-U cleavage site adopts a splayed-apart conformation with in-line alignment of the modeled 2′-O of G for attack on the adjacent to-be-cleaved P-O5′ bond. Highly conserved residues G40 (N1 position) and A32 (N3 and 2′-OH positions) are aligned to act as general base and general acid respectively to accelerate cleavage chemistry, with their roles confirmed from cleavage assays on mutants, and an increased pKa of 4.7 for A32. Our structure of the pistol ribozyme defines how the overall and local topologies dictate the in-line alignment at the G-U cleavage site, with cleavage assays on mutants identifying key residues participating in acid-base catalyzed cleavage chemistry.
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