Laser excited Raman spectroscopy of biomolecules. 14. Raman spectra of ten aqueous transfer RNAs and 5S RNA. Conformational comparison with yeast phenylalanine transfer RNA

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Abstract
Eleven native tRNA were prepared so as to maintain their Mg2+ content. Their aqueous Raman spectra show a high, relatively constant amount of order in the ribophosphate backbone, as indicated by the ratio 1.73 .+-. 0.05 for I814/I1100 in all samples. Variation in the effectiveness of stacking of guanine and adenine bases is seen, although most of the tRNA studied have a comparable degree of stacking to that found in phenylalanine tRNA from yeast, whose tertiary structure was determined by X-ray crystallography. The spectrum of Escherichia coli 5S RNA indicates that the stacking efficiency of the guanine bases is much higher in 5S RNA than in yeast phenylalanine transfer RNA, while that of the adenine bases is lower.