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Substantial improvements in the purity of full-length RNA products
About
Technology RNA is increasingly used as both a research and therapeutic tool to control gene expression. T7 RNA polymerase is the primary enzyme used for in vitro RNA synthesis. One problem that exists in any transcription system is that many initial RNA sequences yield substantial amounts of short, abortive products that complicate both the yield and the purity of the desired in vitro transcript. Researches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a new series of T7 RNA polymerase mutants based on mechanistic understandings of the polymerase function. These new mutant forms of T7 RNA polymerase dramatically reduces the yield of undesired (short, abortive) transcripts in transcription. This leads to a higher fraction of transcripts being the desired full-length RNA product.