LEUCINE tRNA AND CESSATION OF Escherichia coli PROTEIN SYNTHESIS UPON PHAGE T2 INFECTION

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The involvement of tRNA in cellular differentiation has been tested by analyzing aminoacyl-tRNA of Escherichia coli after phage T2 infection. One or two minutes after infection, half of one of the five leucine tRNA components (Leu-tRNA(1), CUG responding) undergoes a drastic structural change which leads to inactivity of both leucine acceptor activity and codon response. Whether or not the modification causes cessation of host protein synthesis without inhibiting phage-specific protein synthesis has been examined by analyzing polysome-bound leucine tRNA of E. coli before and after the phage infection. The results presented in this paper indicate that the amount of Leu-tRNA(1) used after infection was greatly reduced as compared to that used in noninfected cells. Studies of the in vitro protein-synthesizing system show that T2 mRNA rarely contains the CUG codon. A mechanism by which host mRNA translation is inhibited by the phage infection is proposed from this available information.