Unconventional reading of the glycine codons

Abstract

We have used a protein-synthesizing in vitro system programmed with the phage message MS2-RNA to investigate the ability of glycyl-tRNAs with different anticodons to read the glycine codons. Under conditions of no competition, when the glycyl-tRNA analyzed was the only source of glycine for protein synthesis, each of the isoacceptors tested, tRNA1Gly (anticodon CCC), tRNA2Gly (anticodon N/UCC), tRNA3Gly (anticodon GCC) from Escherichia coli, and tRNAGly (anticodon UCC) from Mycoplasma mycoides, could read all of the glycine codons in the MS2 coat protein cistron (GGU, GGC, GGA, and GGG). However, tRNA1Gly seemed to have difficulties reading through the whole cistron. Experiments in which two glycyl-tRNAs competed for the same codon showed that the mycoplasma tRNAGly (anticodon UCC) was almost as efficient in the unorthodox reading of the codons GGU and GGC as it was in conventional reading. It would seem to be the only tRNAGly present in Mycoplasma mycoides and our results are consistent with this finding since the mycoplasma tRNAGly appears to have been designed to read all four glycine codons with approximately equal efficiency. The competition experiments furthermore showed that E. coli tRNA1Gly (anticodon CCC) reads the codon GGA more efficiently than it reads GGU and GGC suggesting that the mispair C . A between the wobble position of the anticodon and the third codon position might have appreciable stability.