Custom codons come in threes, fours, and fives.
In a laboratory coselection of reporter messages containing a single randomized essential two-, four-, five-, or six-base "codon" with suppressor tRNA(Ser) libraries whose members possessed randomized anticodon loops of varying sizes, only four- and five-base "codon-anticodon" interactions survived. These suppressor tRNAs accomplish +1 and -1 frameshift suppression, suggesting biological significance. They also display some properties common to serine tRNAs; such properties include a modest excess of Ser anticodons that might assist tRNA charging.
Landweber
Laura F
LF
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
D003062:Codon / Q000235:genetics*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics*; D005815:Genetic Code
D003062:Codon