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H Gouzu

Publications and source records attributed to H Gouzu.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Molecular computation by DNA hairpin formation.

Hairpin formation by single-stranded DNA molecules was exploited in a DNA-based computation in order to explore the feasibility of autonomous molecular computing. An instance of the satisfiability problem, a famous hard combinatorial problem, was solved by using molecular biology techniques. The satisfiability of a given Boolean formula was examined autonomously, on the basis of hairpin formation by the molecules that represent the formula. This computation algorithm can test several clauses in the given formula simultaneously, which could reduce the number of laboratory steps required for computation.

Algorithms↗

State transitions by molecules.

In our previous paper, we described a method by which a state machine is implemented by a single-stranded DNA molecule whose 3'-end sequence encodes the current state of the machine. Successive state transitions are performed in such a way that the current state is annealed onto an appropriate portion of DNA encoding the transition table of the state machine and the next state is copied to the 3'-end by extension with polymerase. In this paper, we first show that combined with parallel overlap assembly, a single series of successive transitions can solve NP-complete problems. This means that the number of necessary laboratory steps is independent from the problem size. We then report the results of two experiments concerning the implementation of our method. One is on isothermal reactions which greatly increase the efficiency of state transitions compared with reactions controlled by thermal cycles. The other is on the use of unnatural bases for avoiding out-of-frame annealing. The latter result can also be applied to many DNA-based computing paradigms.

Animals↗

Site-specific cleavage of tRNA by imidazole and/or primary amine groups bound at the 5'-end of oligodeoxyribonucleotides.

Sequence specific RNA cleaving molecules were synthesized by attaching novel polyamine derivatives bearing imidazole and/or primary amine groups to the 5'-end of DNA oligonucleotides as the sequence-recognizing moieties. The actions of the molecules on a half-tRNA(Asp) were investigated. The oligonucleotides directed the nuclease activity (the imidazole and the primary amine are the catalytic groups) of the enzyme to the nucleotides directly adjacent to the complementary target sequence on the substrate RNA. The cleavage reaction shows a bell-shaped pH dependence with a maximum at pH 7.0, indicating the participation of protonated and non-protonated imidazoles residues in the process. The specificity of these hybrid enzymes can be easily altered, and they should prove to be useful tools for probing RNA structures in solution and as potential reactive groups in antisense oligonucleotide derivatives. We also describe the site-specific cleavage of tRNA(Asp) by the cleaving reagents bearing imidazole and/or primary amine groups at the 5'-end of oligodeoxyribonucleotides.

Amines↗