Pan T, Gutell R R, Uhlenbeck O C
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder 80309.
Science. 1991 Nov 29;254(5036):1361-4. doi: 10.1126/science.1720569.
All of the ribose-phosphate linkages in yeast tRNA(Phe) that could be cleaved without affecting the folding of the molecule have been determined in a single experiment. Circular permutation analysis subjects circular tRNA molecules to limited alkaline hydrolysis in order to generate one random break per molecule. Correctly folded tRNAs were identified by lead cleavage at neutral pH, a well-characterized reaction that requires proper folding of tRNA(Phe). Surprisingly, most of the circularly permuted tRNA molecules folded correctly. This result suggests that the tRNA folding motif could occur internally within other RNA sequences, and a computer search of Genbank entries has identified many examples of such motifs.
在一项实验中已确定了酵母苯丙氨酸转运核糖核酸（tRNAPhe）中所有可在不影响分子折叠的情况下被切割的核糖磷酸键。环形排列分析使环形tRNA分子经历有限的碱水解，以便每个分子产生一个随机断裂。通过在中性pH下的铅切割来鉴定正确折叠的tRNA，这是一种特征明确的反应，需要tRNAPhe正确折叠。令人惊讶的是，大多数环形排列的tRNA分子都能正确折叠。这一结果表明，tRNA折叠基序可能出现在其他RNA序列内部，并且对基因库条目的计算机搜索已鉴定出许多此类基序的实例。
