Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) are multidomain proteins that specifically attach amino acids to their cognate tRNAs. Their most conserved, and presumably evolutionarily oldest, domains are the catalytic cores, which activate amino acids and transfer them to the 3' ends of tRNAs. Additional domains appended to or inserted in the body of aaRSs increase efficiency and specificity of the aminoa...

Despite the general requirement for translation fidelity, mistranslation can be an adaptive response. We selected spontaneous second site mutations that suppress the stress sensitivity caused by a Saccharomyces cerevisiae tti2 allele with a Leu to Pro mutation at residue 187, identifying a single nucleotide mutation at the same position (C70U) in four tRNAProUGG genes. Linkage analysis and supp...

We report here the successful assembly of the complete mitochondrial genomes of the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) and the barred owl (S. varia). We utilized sequence data from two sequencing methodologies, Illumina paired-end sequence data with insert lengths ranging from approximately 250 nucleotides (nt) to 9,600 nt and read lengths from 100-375 nt and Sanger-derived seque...

Retroviral RNases H are similar in sequence and structure to Escherichia coli RNase HI and yet have differences in substrate specificities, metal ion requirements, and specific activities. Separation of reverse transcriptase (RT) into polymerase and RNase H domains yields an active RNase H from murine leukemia virus (MuLV) but an inactive human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) RNase H. The "handle ...

Dimerization of genomic RNA is a key step in the retroviral life cycle and has been postulated to be involved in the regulation of translation, encapsidation and reverse transcription. Here, we have derived a secondary structure model of nucleotides upstream from psi and of the gag initiation region of Mo-MuLV RNA in monomeric and dimeric forms, using chemical probing, sequence comparison and c...

A 2500-nucleotide pair (ntp) sequence of F-type mitochondrial (mt) DNA of the Pacific Rim mussel Mytilus californianus (class Bivalvia, phylum Mollusca) that contains two complete (ND2 and ND3) and two partial (COI and COIII) protein genes and nine tRNA genes is presented. Seven of the encoded tRNAs (Ala, Arg, His, Met(AUA), Pro, Ser(UCN), and Trp) have the potential to fold into the orthodox f...

In Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium, Mg2+ limitation induces transcription of the mgtA Mg2+ transport gene, but the mechanism involved is unclear. The 5' leader of the mgtA mRNA contains a 17-codon, proline-rich ORF, mgtL, whose translation regulates the transcription of mgtA [Park S-Y et al. (2010) Cell 142:737-748]. Rapid translation of mgtL promotes formation of a secondary structure ...

The nucleotide sequence of the long terminal repeat (LTR) of bovine leukemia virus, a unique oncogenic retrovirus of cattle, was determined. The LTR consisted of 530 base pairs (bp) with an inverted repeat of 6 bp at its 5' and 3' ends, flanked by a direct repeat of 6 bp of host cell origin. A tRNAPro binding site for minus-strand DNA synthesis followed the 5' LTR. The U3 region contained putat...