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Association of ribosomal subunits: Mechanism of the reaction induced by association factor
Author(s) -
García-Patrone M.,
González N.S.,
Algranati I.D.
Publication year - 1972
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/0014-5793(72)80842-1
Subject(s) - humanities , art
The association of ribosomal subparticles into monomers is one of the general properties of bacterial ribosomes that has been more extensively investigated in the last few years. In 1959. TissiZres et al. [ 1 ] found that subunits form 30 S-SO S couples when the Mg’* concentration is increased up to 10 mM or higher. These results have been confirmed by other investigators and many studies on the equilibrium between the monomer and its subunits have now been reported [2-41. This equilibrium can also be shifted towards association by addition of polyamines [2, 5-71, some non-ionic agents such as ethanol and dioxane [8], or aminoglycoside antibiotics, such as neomycin [7, 9-I l] On the other hand ribosomal subparticles tend to associate at relatively low Mg2+ concentrations when they are attached to aminoacylor peptidyl-tRNA [12, 131. Recently we have described a new factor which produces the in vitro association of washed ribosomal subunits (free of aminoacyland peptidyl-tRNA) at 3-5 mM Mg2+ [ 141. This association factor (AF) has been obtained by’extracting ribosomes of Bacillus stearothermophilus with a strong salt solution. AF will not only associate the ribosomal subunits obtained from thermophilic bacteria but also those of Escherichia coli. The splitting of 70 S monomers caused by dissociation factor (DF) can be reversed by the addition of AF [ 141. It has been shown that following dissociation