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Deciphering synonymous codons in the three domains of life: Co‐evolution with specific tRNA modification enzymes
Author(s) -
Grosjean Henri,
de Crécy-Lagard Valérie,
Marck Christian
Publication year - 2010
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/j.febslet.2009.11.052
Subject(s) - genetic code , transfer rna , three domain system , archaea , biology , wobble base pair , genetics , enzyme , evolutionary biology , computational biology , amino acid , biochemistry , rna , gene
The strategies organisms use to decode synonymous codons in cytosolic protein synthesis are not uniform. The complete isoacceptor tRNA repertoire and the type of modified nucleoside found at the wobble position 34 of their anticodons were analyzed in all kingdoms of life. This led to the identification of four main decoding strategies that are diversely used in Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya. Many of the modern tRNA modification enzymes acting at position 34 of tRNAs are present only in specific domains and obviously have arisen late during evolution. In an evolutionary fine‐tuning process, these enzymes must have played an essential role in the progressive introduction of new amino acids, and in the refinement and standardization of the canonical nuclear genetic code observed in all extant organisms (functional convergent evolutionary hypothesis).