Searching tRNA sequences for relatedness to aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase families.

tRNA sequences were analyzed for sequence features correlated with known classes of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase enzymes. The tRNAs were searched for distinguishing nucleotides anywhere in their sequences. The analyses did not find nucleotides predictive of synthetase class membership. We conclude that such nucleotides never existed in tRNA sequences or that they existed and were lost from many of the tRNA sequences during evolution.