Question

Ribozyme was discovered by
(a) Kuhne
(b) Altman
(c) Cech
(d) Both b and c

Answer 1

Hint: This class of catalytic RNAs finding gained the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the year 1989 which was discovered by two scientists. Their surname has some specific meanings. One of the scientists has a surname which refers to ‘the origin from Bohemia’ and the other surname means 'Old man’.

Complete answer:
A ribozyme (ribonucleic acid (RNA) is an enzyme that catalyzes a chemical reaction. The ribozyme catalyzes specific reactions like protein enzymes. Ribozyme was discovered by Thomas Cech and Sidney Altman.

Additional Information:
- Until recently, it was thought that proteins were the only biological molecules capable of catalysis.
- However, in the early 1980s, a research group led by Sidney Altman and Thomas Cech independently found that RNAs can also act as catalysts for chemical reactions. These classes of catalytic RNAs are known as ribozymes. In 1989, Cech and Altman won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their “discovery of catalytic properties of RNA’.
- Ribozymes are also called catalytic RNA and are found in the ribosome where they join amino acids to form protein chains, a process called translation.
- The self- splicing introns and the RNA component of RNase P (cleaves the 5’ end of tRNA precursors) are two examples of ribozymes. Introns are the noncoding regions of the mRNA (i.e.,) it will not translate into the protein and exons are the coding regions of mRNA that get translated into the proteins.
So the correct answer is ‘Altman and Cech’.

Note: The discovery of ribozymes supported a hypothesis known as the RNA world hypothesis. It suggests that life on Earth started with a simple molecule of RNA that could copy itself from other molecules without the help of any molecules. This hypothesis in1960s was proposed by various scientists independently including Carl Woese, Leslie orgel, and Francis Crick even before the ribozymes were discovered.