title: Cysteinyl-tRNA formation: the last puzzle of aminoacyl-tRNA synthesis.
abstract: With the exception of the methanogenic archaea Methanococcus jannaschii and Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum deltaH, all organisms surveyed contain orthologs of Escherichia coli cysteinyl-tRNA synthetase (CysRS). The characterization of CysRS-encoding (cysS) genes and the demonstration of their ability to complement an E. coli cysSts mutant reveal that Methanococcus maripaludis and Methanosarcina barkeri, two other methanogenic archaea, possess canonical CysRS proteins. A molecular phylogeny inferred from 40 CysRS sequences indicates that the CysRS of M. maripaludis and Methanosarcina spp. are specific relatives of the CysRS of Pyrococcus spp. and Chlamydia, respectively. This result suggests that the CysRS gene was acquired by lateral gene transfer in at least one euryarchaeotic lineage.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8114, USA.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: D E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Graham
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stathopoulos
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Haney
authors.forename: H S
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Vothknecht
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kitabatake
authors.forename: K W
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Eggertsson
authors.forename: A W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Curnow
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Celic
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Whitman
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Söll
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D019766:Genes, Archaeal; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D005816:Genetic Complementation Test; D017017:Methanococcus / Q000235:genetics; D017021:Methanosarcina barkeri / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016296:Mutagenesis; D010802:Phylogeny; D012346:RNA, Transfer, Amino Acyl / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
chemical_list: D012346:RNA, Transfer, Amino Acyl