Aminoacylation and translational quality control strategy employed by leucyl-tRNA synthetase from a human pathogen with genetic code ambiguity.

ABSTRACT: Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases should ensure high accuracy in tRNA aminoacylation. However, the absence of significant structural differences between amino acids always poses a direct challenge for some aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, such as leucyl-tRNA synthetase (LeuRS), which require editing function to remove mis-activated amino acids. In the cytoplasm of the human pathogen Candida albicans, the CUG codon is translated as both Ser and Leu by a uniquely evolved CatRNA(Ser)(CAG). Its cytoplasmic LeuRS (CaLeuRS) is a crucial component for CUG codon ambiguity and harbors only one CUG codon at position 919. Comparison of the activity of CaLeuRS-Ser(919) and CaLeuRS-Leu(919) revealed yeast LeuRSs have a relaxed tRNA recognition capacity. We also studied the mis-activation and editing of non-cognate

SUBMITTER: Zhou XL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3834818 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature