The importance of individual nucleotides for the structure and function of rRNA molecules in E. coli

Abstract
Methods of in vitro mutagenesis were employed to determine the importance of individual nucleotides within the ribosomal RNAs for the structure and function of E. coli ribosomes. A series of denned nucleotides in the genes for the 5 S and 16 S RNA were altered by transition and transversion mutations using either oligonucleotide‐directed or bisulfite‐catalyzed mutation procedures. Plasmids harbouring the mutated rRNA genes were expressed and the ribosomes containing such altered RNAs were investigated for impairments in RNA‐protein interaction assembly and mRNA‐coded tRNA binding.