Rolling Circle Amplification in a Prokaryotic Translation System Using Small Circular RNA†

Abstract

Getting the runaround: Small circular RNA molecules containing an infinite open reading frame were synthesized and tested in an E. coli cell-free translation system. A circular RNA 126 nucleotides in length was found to produce more product than its linear counterpart by two orders of magnitude, because a ribosome can work more effectively towards the elongation on circular RNA than it can on linear RNA in this continuous peptide synthesis.