title: Restoring species-specific posttransfer editing activity to a synthetase with a defunct editing domain.
abstract: Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases are multidomain proteins responsible for the attachment of specific amino acids to their tRNA substrates. Prolyl-tRNA synthetases (ProRSs) are notable due to their particularly diverse architectures through evolution. For example, Saccharomyces cerevisiae ProRS possesses an N-terminal extension with weak homology to a bacterial-specific domain typically present as an insertion (INS) within the aminoacylation active site. The INS domain has been shown to contain a "posttransfer" editing active site responsible for cleaving the aminoacyl-ester bond of misacylated Ala-tRNA(Pro) species. However, wild-type S. cerevisiae ProRS does not perform posttransfer editing in vitro. Here, we show that replacement of the N-terminal domain of S. cerevisiae ProRS with the Escherichia coli INS domain confers posttransfer editing function to this chimeric enzyme, with specificity for yeast Ala-tRNA(Pro). In contrast, the isolated INS domain displays only weak editing activity and lacks tRNA sequence specificity. These results emphasize the modular nature of synthetase editing active sites and demonstrate how in evolution, a weak editing activity can be converted to a more robust state through fusion to the body of a synthetase. In this manner, a single editing module can be distributed to different synthetases, and simultaneously acquire specificity and enhanced activity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
authors.forename: Julius
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: SternJohn
authors.forename: Sanchita
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hati
authors.forename: Paul G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Siliciano
authors.forename: Karin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Musier-Forsyth
mesh_terms: D000604:Amino Acyl-tRNA Synthetases / Q000378:metabolism*; D001665:Binding Sites; D011392:Proline; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D017393:RNA Editing; D012346:RNA, Transfer, Amino Acyl; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D013045:Species Specificity; D013379:Substrate Specificity
chemical_list: D012346:RNA, Transfer, Amino Acyl; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D011392:Proline; D000604:Amino Acyl-tRNA Synthetases; C100134:prolyl T RNA synthetase