Studies on chemical modification of thionucleosides in the transfer ribonucleic acid of Escherichia coli

Biochem J. 1974 November; 143(2): 285–294.

PMCID: PMC1168383

Studies on chemical modification of thionucleosides in the transfer ribonucleic acid of Escherichia coli

Yarlagadda S. Prasada Rao and Joseph D. Cherayil

Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Abstract

³⁵S-labelled tRNA from Escherichia coli was treated with chemical reagents such as CNBr, H₂O₂, NH₂OH, I₂, HNO₂, KMnO₄ and NaIO₄, under mild conditions where the four major bases were not affected. Gel filtration of the treated tRNA showed desulphurization to various extents, depending on the nature of the reagent. The treated samples after conversion into nucleosides were chromatographed on a phosphocellulose column. NH₂OH, I₂ and NaIO₄ reacted with all the four thionucleosides of E. coli tRNA, 4-thiouridine (s⁴U), 5-methylaminomethyl-2-thiouridine (mnm⁵s²U), 2-thiocytidine (s²C) and 2-methylthio-N⁶-isopentenyladenosine (ms²i⁶A), to various extents. CNBr, HNO₂ and NaHSO₃ reacted with s⁴U, mnm⁵s²U and s²C, but not with ms²i⁶A. KMnO₄ and H₂O₂ were also found to react extensively with thionucleosides in tRNA. Iodine oxidation of ³⁵S-labelled tRNA showed that only 6% of the sulphur was involved in disulphide formation. Desulphurization of E. coli tRNA with CNBr resulted in marked loss of acceptor activities for glutamic acid, glutamine and lysine. Acceptor activities for alanine, arginine, glycine, isoleucine, methionine, phenylalanine, serine, tyrosine and valine were also affected, but to a lesser extent. Five other amino acids tested were almost unaffected. These results indicate the fate of thionucleosides in tRNA when subjected to various chemical reactions and the involvement of sulphur in aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase recognition of some tRNA species of E. coli.

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