Design and switch of catalytic activity with the DNAzyme–RNAzyme combination

Design and switch of catalytic activity in enzymology remains a subject of intense investigation. Here, we employ a DNAzyme–RNAzyme combination strategy for construction of a 10–23 deoxyribozyme-hammerhead ribozyme combination that targets different sites of the β-lactamase mRNA. The 10–23 deoxyribozyme-hammerhead ribozyme combination gene was cloned into phagemid vector pBlue-scriptIIKS (+). In vitro the single-strand recombinant phagemid vector containing the combination sequence exhibited 10–23 deoxyribozyme activity, and the linear transcript displayed hammerhead ribozyme activity. In bacteria, the 10–23 deoxyribozyme-hammerhead ribozyme combination inhibited the β-lactamase expression and repressed the growth of drug-resistant bacteria. Thus, we created a DNAzyme–RNAzyme combination strategy that provides a useful approach to design and switch of catalytic activities for nucleic acid enzymes.