Structural and Genetic Determinants of Convergence in the Drosophila tRNA Structure-Function Map.

ABSTRACT: The evolution of tRNA multigene families remains poorly understood, exhibiting unusual phenomena such as functional conversions of tRNA genes through anticodon shift substitutions. We improved FlyBase tRNA gene annotations from twelve Drosophila species, incorporating previously identified ortholog sets to compare substitution rates across tRNA bodies at single-site and base-pair resolution. All rapidly evolving sites fell within the same metal ion-binding pocket that lies at the interface of the two major stacked helical domains. We applied our tRNA Structure-Function Mapper (tSFM) method independently to each Drosophila species and one outgroup species Musca domestica and found that, although predicted tRNA structure-function maps are generally highly conserved in flies, one tRNA Class-I

SUBMITTER: Phillips JB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7884595 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature