Engineering of Thiamine Pyrophosphate Fluorescent Biosensors Based on Ribozyme Switches in Mammalian Cells

TPP hammerhead ribozymes as the regulatory components for EGFP gene expression is in living mammalian cells. “Switch-off” ribozymes increase pre-mRNA cleavage in the presence of TPP, which results in the decrease of EGFP gene expression. “Switch-on” ribozymes shut off self-cleavage of pre-mRNA upon the external addition of TPP, which leads to the increase of EGFP gene expression.