Nucleic Acids Research, Vol 27, Issue 7 1683-1689, Copyright © 1999 by Oxford University Press
K Tomita, T Ueda and K Watanabe
It has been inferred from DNA sequence analyses that in echinoderm
mitochondria not only the usual asparagine codons AAU and AAC, but also the
usual lysine codon AAA, are translated as asparagine by a single
mitochondrial (mt) tRNAAsn with the anticodon GUU. Nucleotide sequencing of
starfish mt tRNAAsn revealed that the anticodon is GPsiU, U35 at the
anticodon second position being modified to pseudouridine (Psi). In
contrast, mt tRNALys, corresponding to another lysine codon, AAG, has the
anticodon CUU. mt tRNAs possessing anti-codons closely related to that of
tRNAAsn, but responsible for decoding only two codons each-tRNAHis, tRNAAsp
and tRNATyr-were found to possess unmodified U35 in all cases, suggesting
the importance of Psi35 for decoding the three codons. Therefore, the
decoding capabilities of two synthetic Escherichia coli tRNAAla variants
with the anticodon GPsiU or GUU were examined using an E.coli in vitro
translation system. Both tRNAs could translate not only AAC and AAU with
similar efficiency, but also AAA with an efficiency that was approximately
2-fold higher in the case of tRNAAlaGPsiU than tRNAAlaGUU. These findings
imply that Psi35 of echinoderm mt tRNAAsn actually serves to decode the
unusual asparagine codon AAA, resulting in the alteration of the genetic
code in echinoderm mitochondria.
ARTICLES
The presence of pseudouridine in the anticodon alters the genetic code: a possible mechanism for assignment of the AAA lysine codon as asparagine in echinoderm mitochondria
Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan.
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