Abstract
IN Escherichia coli, protein synthesis is initiated with for-mylmethionine, coded by the triplet AUG. As the first step in translation, ribosomes bind to the AUG initiator codon in the presence of initiation factors, charged fMet-tRNA and GTP. The sequence or structure of a messenger RNA molecule must signal that a particular AUG triplet is an initiation codon, and the cell's ribosomes must recognise this region as containing a signal for initiation of translation. In a reaction suitable for in vitro protein synthesis, except that it contains only one species of charged tRNA, fMet-tRNA, ribosomes bind to and protect initiation regions from nuclease digestion. The ribosomes bind at the AUG initiator codon and cannot proceed any further due to the lack of charged tRNA species other than fMet-tRNA. In the hope of determining the characteristics peculiar to an initiation region in a mRNA molecule, a number of ribosome binding sites have been sequenced1–8.
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MAIZELS, N. E. coli lactose operon ribosome binding site. Nature 249, 647–649 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1038/249647b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/249647b0
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