Figure 1.
Genetic and structural relationship between one-piece (Escherichia coli; A) and two-piece (Caulobacter crescentus; B) tmRNAs. Both tmRNAs contain the same functional elements, but a circular permutation in the gene of the two-piece tmRNA alters the linear order of these elements. The folded structures are both predicted to contain a tRNA-like domain and an mRNA-like domain, but in the two-piece tmRNA, this structure is formed by two distinct RNA molecules.