Small but large enough: structural properties of armless mitochondrial tRNAs from the nematode Romanomermis culicivorax.

ABSTRACT: As adapter molecules to convert the nucleic acid information into the amino acid sequence, tRNAs play a central role in protein synthesis. To fulfill this function in a reliable way, tRNAs exhibit highly conserved structural features common in all organisms and in all cellular compartments active in translation. However, in mitochondria of metazoans, certain dramatic deviations from the consensus tRNA structure are described, where some tRNAs lack the D- or T-arm without losing their function. In Enoplea, this miniaturization comes to an extreme, and functional mitochondrial tRNAs can lack both arms, leading to a considerable size reduction. Here, we investigate the secondary and tertiary structure of two such armless tRNAs from Romanomermis culicivorax. Despite their high AU content, the

SUBMITTER: Juhling T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6158502 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature