Part:BBa_M0100

tRNA_Arg5 to use as transcriptional reporter

tRNA_Arg5 to use as transcriptional reporter. Sequence is natural tRNA_Arg5 except with A to U mutation near its 3' end.

Usage and Biology

A to U mutation reduces capacity of tRNA to load arginine. See gb U11296 for K12 tRNA_Arg5 sequence. Chris Hayes says that tRNA_Arg5 is the lowest abundance tRNA in the cell -- thus background levels should be pretty low. Actually, Chris Hayes follows up to say...

Hey Drew,

In researching my grant application, I revisited a paper that quantified E. coli tRNAs. It turns out that tRNA-Arg5 (encoded by argW) is not the least abundant tRNA species. tRNA-Arg (~420 molecules/cell, or 0.65% of total tRNA) is the fourth least abundant tRNA behind/above:

tRNA-Thr1 (~100/cell, 0.16% of total)

tRNA-Sec (~220/cell, 0.34% of total)

tRNA-Ser2 (~340/cell, 0.53% of total)

My confusion arose because tRNA-Arg5 decodes AGG, which is used less frequently than any other codon except ACA. However, ACA is decoded by tRNA-Thr4 (~900/cell, 1.42% of total) and is not normally regarded as a rare codon/tRNA pair.

[Dong, et al. (1996). Co-variation of tRNA abundance and codon usage in Escherichia coli at different growth rates. J. Mol. Biol. 260: 649-663]

Hope all is well.

Cheers,

Chris

Christopher S. Hayes Assistant Professor Department of Molecular, Cellular

and Developmental Biology

University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106

Ph: (805) 893-7195 Fax: (805) 893-4724

chayes@lifesci.ucsb.edu

Sequence and Features

Assembly Compatibility:

• 10
  INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[10]

  Illegal PstI site found at 71
  
• 12
  INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[12]

  Illegal PstI site found at 71
  
• 21
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[21]
• 23
  INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[23]

  Illegal PstI site found at 71
  
• 25
  INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[25]

  Illegal PstI site found at 71
  
• 1000
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[1000]