A large number of catalytic RNAs, or ribozymes, have been identified in the genomes of various organisms and viruses. Ribozymes are involved in biological processes such as regulation of gene expression and viral replication, but biological roles of many ribozymes still remain unknown. Ribozymes have also inspired researchers to engineer synthetic ribozymes that function as sensors or gene switches. To gain deeper understanding of the sequence-function relationship of ribozymes and to efficiently engineer synthetic ribozymes, a large number of ribozyme variants need to be examined which was limited to hundreds of sequences by Sanger sequencing. The advent of high-throughput sequencing technologies, however, has allowed us to sequence millions of ribozyme sequences at low cost. This review focuses on the recent applications of high-throughput sequencing to both characterize and engineer ribozymes, to highlight how the large-scale sequence data can advance ribozyme research and engineering.

中文翻译：

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高通量测序在核酶分析和工程化中的应用

已经在各种生物体和病毒的基因组中鉴定出大量催化性 RNA 或核酶。核酶参与基因表达调控和病毒复制等生物学过程，但许多核酶的生物学作用仍然未知。核酶还启发了研究人员设计合成核酶，用作传感器或基因开关。为了更深入地了解核酶的序列-功能关系并有效地设计合成核酶，需要检查大量核酶变体，而桑格测序仅限于数百个序列。然而，高通量测序技术的出现使我们能够以低成本对数百万个核酶序列进行测序。