title: Amino acid specificity in translation.
abstract: Recent structural and biochemical experiments indicate that bacterial elongation factor Tu and the ribosomal A-site show specificity for both the amino acid and the tRNA portions of their aminoacyl-tRNA (aa-tRNA) substrates. These data are inconsistent with the traditional view that tRNAs are generic adaptors in translation. We hypothesize that each tRNA sequence has co-evolved with its cognate amino acid, such that all aa-tRNAs are translated uniformly.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
authors.forename: Taraka
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dale
authors.forename: Olke C
authors.initials: OC
authors.lastname: Uhlenbeck
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D000604:Amino Acyl-tRNA Synthetases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D001665:Binding Sites; D008954:Models, Biological; D008958:Models, Molecular; D010444:Peptide Elongation Factor Tu / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D012346:RNA, Transfer, Amino Acyl / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D012270:Ribosomes / Q000378:metabolism; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D012346:RNA, Transfer, Amino Acyl; D010444:Peptide Elongation Factor Tu; D000604:Amino Acyl-tRNA Synthetases