Differential pattern of misreading induced by streptomycin in vitro.

A simplified, plasmid-directed coupled system was used to study the effect of streptomycin on the accuracy of natural messenger translation in vitro. The interaction of six different codons with their cognate tRNAs and 18 non-cognate tRNAs was analysed in the presence and absence of the antibiotic. Streptomycin appeared to modify, to a varying extent, the frequency of errors in codon-anticodon recognition. From this observation, some rules for mistranslation were inferred.