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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2011 Mar 6;18(4):432–436. doi: 10.1038/nsmb.2003

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Comparison of cognate and near-cognate structures in the decoding center. A) Unbiased Fo - Fc electron density (displayed at 1.3σ within 2 Å of EF-Tu) is shown for residues in the wobble position of the codon-anticodon helix. B) Binding of a near-cognate tRNA (A9C on UGA: orange, G24A on UGA: red), compared to a cognate tRNA (G24A on UGG: yellow, tRNATrp on UGG: green), results in a shift in both the tRNA anticodon and mRNA codon. C) The distortion in the anticodon caused by this mismatch is propagated three residues, resulting in a shift in the tRNA backbone for the G24A on UGA when compared to the G24A or tRNATrp on UGG. D) However this distortion does not continue past residue 31; by residue 28 the backbone of the G24A on UGA has converged with that of the G24A on UGG.