Effect of tandemly repeated AGG triplets on the translation of CAT‐mRNA in E. coli

FEBS Letters

Alexandrova, R.¹  Ivanov, I.²  Saraffova, A.¹  Dragulev, B.²  AbouHaidar, M.G.² 

[1] Institute of Molecular Biology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria;Department of Botany, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

关键词: CAT gene;    Gene expression;    Genetic code;    Codon usage;    Rare codons;    SD-sequence;   

DOI  :  10.1016/0014-5793(92)80761-5

学科分类：生物化学/生物物理

来源: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

【 摘 要 】

It has been shown that tandems of rare arginine codons AGG have a strong inhibitory effect on translation of mRNA in E. coli [5]. This has been explained by the rate-limiting interaction of these codons with the less abundant tRNA^AGG [6]. In this study tandemly repeated AGG triplets were introduced into the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene either upstream of the initiation ATG codon or downstream of it (both in frame and out of frame) and the expression of the modified genes was investigated. We report that the addition of AGG clusters resulted in a substantial inhibitory effect on CAT gene expression independently of their localization in mRNA. This inhibitory effect is explained by a competition of the tandem AGGAGG with the natural Shine—Dalgarno (SD) sequence (consensus AAGGAGGU) for the 3′-end of the 16S small ribosomal RNA (rRNA).

【 授权许可】

Unknown