Abstract
Riboswitches modulate gene expression in eubacteria and eukaryotes in response to changing concentrations of small molecule metabolites. In most examples studied to date, riboswitches achieve both metabolite sensing and gene control functions without the obligate involvement of protein factors. These findings validate the hypothesis that RNA molecules could be engineered to function as designer gene control elements that sense and respond to different ligands. We believe that reverse engineering natural riboswitches could provide an intellectual foundation for those who wish to build synthetic riboswitches. Also, natural riboswitches might serve as starting points for efforts to change ligand specificity or gene control function through mutation and selection in vitro. In this chapter, we describe how in vitro selection can be used to create variant glmS ribozymes. Additionally, we discuss how these techniques can be extended to other riboswitch classes.