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. 1969 Feb;62(2):566–573. doi: 10.1073/pnas.62.2.566

THE EFFECT OF TRNA CONCENTRATION ON THE RATE OF PROTEIN SYNTHESIS

W French Anderson 1,*
PMCID: PMC277843  PMID: 4894331

Abstract

Two in vitro protein-synthesizing systems derived from E. coli have been utilized to demonstrate that the concentration of a tRNA species can regulate the rate of translation of a messenger RNA. (a) The rate of poly-U-directed C14-phenylalanine incorporation into protein is stimulated by concentrations of tRNAPhe from 1.5 × 10-8 M to 3.0 × 10-6 M, the latter representing a tRNAPhe/70S ribosome ratio of 7. (b) The rate of translation of poly A,G in a S-30 protein-synthesizing system derived from E. coli is limited by the amount of tRNAArg recognizing the codewords AGA and AGG present in the extract. Polypeptide synthesis can be stimulated in direct proportion to the amount of this tRNAArg species added to the reaction mixture. A mechanism for regulating the rate of protein synthesis at the translational level may be the slowing of polypeptide chain propagation at certain codons due to the presence of rate-limiting tRNA species.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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