Co-variation of tRNA Abundance and Codon Usage inEscherichia coliat Different Growth Rates
Abstract
We have used two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis to fractionate tRNAs from Escherichia coli. A sufficiently high degree of resolution was obtained for 44 out of 46 tRNA species in E. coli to be resolved into individual electrophoretic components. These isolated components were identified by hybridization to tRNA-specific oligonucleotide probes. Systematic measurements of the abundance of each individual tRNA isoacceptor in E. coli, grown at rates varying from 0.4 to 2.5 doublings per hour, were made with the aid of this electrophoretic protocol. We find that there is a biased distribution of the tRNA abundance at all growth rates, and that this can be roughly correlated with the values of codon frequencies in the mRNA pools calculated for bacteria growing at different rates. The tRNA species cognate to abundant codons increase in concentration as the growth rate increases but not as dramatically as might be anticipated. The levels of most of the tRNA isoacceptors cognate to less abundant codons remain unchanged with increasing growth rates. The result of these changes in tRNA abundance is that the relative increase in the amounts of major tRNA species in the bacteria growing at the fastest growth rates is more modest than previous estimates from this laboratory suggested. Furthermore, a systematic error in previous estimates of ribosomal RNA content of the bacteria has been detected. This will account for the quantitative discrepancies between the previous and…
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tRNA concentration is a major selective force on codon usage patterns.
“suggesting that this is a major selective force on codon usage patterns [31-33].”
From Preferred and avoided codon pairs in three domains of life (2008) · cites this paper as [31]
Codon frequencies correlate with tRNA concentrations.
“Codon frequencies correlate with tRNA concentrations, suggesting that this is a major selective force on codon usage patterns [31-33].”
From Preferred and avoided codon pairs in three domains of life (2008) · cites this paper as [31]
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- Authors
- Dong, H., Nilsson, L., & Kurland, C. G.
- Affiliations
- Uppsala University (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Kurland, Charles G.
- ORCID
- Dong, Hengjiang
- Venue
- Journal of Molecular Biology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1996-08
- Volume
- 260
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 649-663
- ISSN
- 0022-2836 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2042700625
- Cited by
- 790
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 38 · 2018: 35 · 2017: 30 · 2016: 36 · 2015: 32 · 2014: 46 · 2013: 31 · 2012: 48
- FWCI
- 4.29
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Molecular Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Cancerfonden
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Bacterial Genetics and Biotechnology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › RNA modifications and cancer
- Keywords
- tRNA abundance, codon usage bias, Escherichia coli, growth rate, tRNA isoacceptors, codon frequency
- MeSH terms
- Base Sequence, Cell Division, Codon, Escherichia coli, Genes, Bacterial, Molecular Sequence Data, RNA, Bacterial, RNA, Ribosomal, RNA, Transfer, RNA, Transfer, Leu, Electrophoresis, Gel, Two-Dimensional, DNA Probes, Gene Dosage
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