News flash life was just discovered on Mars! scientists have begun to examine Ma
ID: 85658 • Letter: N
Question
News flash life was just discovered on Mars! scientists have begun to examine Martian life and find that it is cellular, and probabaly driven from an early meteorite- delivered colonization event from the Earth when the planets were both still young .analysis of Martian cell reveals that Mars life uses the same DNA and RNA that we do, but all the enzyme catalysts are also made of nucleic acids, rather than of proteins. you find the Martian equivalent to the Terran protein restriction endonuclease Sau 3 propose a reasonable catalytic mechanism for how this Martin enzyme converts its substrate into product? Please give me the answer in detailsExplanation / Answer
The martian enzyme which helps in the catalysis of DNA may have a similar mechanism of action like ribozymes. Ribozymes are RNA having catalytic activity. Till now there are only three types of Ribozzymes found in earth biosystem. They are RNase P, ribosome, and parts of splicesosomes.
Among them RNase P was the first identifies as a trans activating ribozyme. This riboyme catalyses the in the maturation of tRNA from precursor tRNA. Due to the cleavage of RNase P precursor tRNA converted into mature tRNA containing 5’ phosphates and 3’ hydroxyls at their ends. Bacterial RNase P has two subunits, an RNA chain called M1 RNA, and a polypeptide chain, called C5 protein. In vivo both the components are required for the catalytic activity however in vitro the RNA chain subunit alone is enough to carry out catalytic activity. Thus a piece of Martian RNA is also able to catalysis in the similar fashion.
Biochemically there are two domains in M1 RNA. Specificity domain or S domain which contains conserved nucleotides and recognises the Tstem loop of precursor tRNA molecule. Another domains is catalytic domain or C domain which recognize the leader, acceptor stem, and the ACCA sequence at the 3 end and cleave the leader sequence to produce mature tRNA. The catalytic mechanism is based on phosphorothioate modifications occur at the RNase P cleavage in the precursor tRNA molecule.