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. 1981 Jul 10;9(13):3105–3117. doi: 10.1093/nar/9.13.3105

Alternative pathways for editing non-cognate amino acids by aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases.

H Jakubowski, A R Fersht
PMCID: PMC327334  PMID: 7024910

Abstract

Evidence is presented that the editing mechanisms of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase operate by two alternative pathways: pre-transfer, by hydrolysis of the non-cognate aminoacyl adenylate; post-transfer, by hydrolysis of the mischarged tRNA. The methionyl-tRNA synthetases from Escherichia coli and Bacillus stearothermophilus and isoleucyl-tRNA synthetase from E. coli, for example, are shown to reject misactivated homocysteine rapidly by the pre-transfer route. A novel feature of this reaction is that homocysteine thiolactone is formed by the facile cyclisation of the homocysteinyl adenylate. Valyl-tRNA synthetases, on the other hand, reject the more readily activated non-cognate amino acids by primarily the post-transfer route. The features governing the choice of pathway are discussed.

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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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