Methylation of newly synthesized ribosomal protein L11 in a DNA-directed in vitro system.

The methylation of newly synthesized ribosomal protein L11 has been obtained in an in vitro system using lambda rifd 18 DNA as template and S-adenosyl[3H]methionine as methyl donor. About four methyl groups are incorporated per mol of L11 synthesized and the bulk of the methyl groups are present in the protein as trimethyl-lysine. lambda rifd 18 DNA also contains the genes for rRNA and newly synthesized 16 S and 23 S RNA are also methylated in this in vitro system.