The electrostatic molecular potential of yeast tRNAPhe. III. The molecular potential and the steric acessibility associated with the phosphate groups

The molecular electrostatic potential of yeast tRNA^Phe is calculated at sites bridging the anionic oxygens of each of the 76 phosphate groups of the molecule. A quantitative measure of the steric accessibility of the anionic oxygens of the phosphates toward a spherical cation is presented. Both the resulting potentials and accessibilities are discussed in terms of the molecular and electronic structure of tRNA.     

Determination of Internucleotide JHN Couplings by the Modified 2D JNN-Correlated [N, H] TROSY

Recent developments in the direct observation of J couplings across hydrogen bonds in proteins and nucleic acids provide additional information for structure and function studies of these molecules by NMR spectroscopy. A J_NN-correlated [¹⁵N, ¹H] TROSY experiment proposed by Pervushin et al. (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 95, 14147–14151, 1998) can be applied to measure ^hJ_HN in smaller nucleic acids in an E.COSY manner. However, it cannot be effectively applied to large nucleic acids, such as tRNA^Trp, since one of the peaks corresponding to a fast relaxing component will be too weak to be observed in the spectra of large molecules. In this Communication, we proposed a modified J_NN-correlated [¹⁵N, ¹H] TROSY experiment which enables direct measurement of ^hJ_HN in large nucleic acids.     

SYNTHESIS AND DETERMINATION OF THE BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES OF YEAST ALANINE tRNA ANALOGUES

The role of base modification in yeast tRNAAl(?) function in protein synthesis was examined by the use of unmodified tRNA analogues. Unmodified full length tRNAs, 5'-half tRNAs (nucleotides 1-35) and 3'-half tRNAs (nucleotides 37-75) were transcribed in vitro using T7-RNA polymerase. Unmodified tRNA half molecules were joined to normally modified half molecules (5'-half, nucleotides 1-36; 3'-half, nucleotides 36-75) by T4-RNA ligase. Using this method, we synthesized three analogues of yeast tRNAAl(?): (i) tRNAAl(?) which lacks base modifications in the 5'-half of the molecule; (ii) tRNAAl(?) which lacks base modifications in the 3'-half of the molecule; and (iii) tRNAAla completely lacking base modifications. We determined the biological activities of these analogues. In rat aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase reactions, the alanine acceptance activity decreased by 52%, 79% and 85% when modified bases were absent from the 5'-half molecule, the 3'-half molecule or the total molecule, respectively. In rabbit retic