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Molecular biology

Genetic code seizes pyrrolysine

Nature volume 431, pages 257–258 (2004)Cite this article

Identification of the enzyme that mediates insertion of a rare amino acid, pyrrolysine, into protein solves a puzzle and expands the rules of the genetic code established nearly half a century ago.

The discovery of the genetic code that translates the information contained in DNA into proteins ranks as one of the greatest achievements of the past century. The code appeared before the split of the tree of life into the three great kingdoms — Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya — and has been maintained in all organisms as an algorithm that relates nucleotide triplets in genes to specific amino acids in proteins. The code requires for its implementation a set of 20 universal enzymes — aminoacyl tRNA synthetases (one for each amino acid). But on page 333 of this issue, Blight et al.1 show that, in certain archaea, an unusual, natural amino acid is read by the code using a novel twenty-first aminoacyl tRNA synthetase.

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Figure 1: RNA structures signal incorporation of non-canonical amino acids.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, Beckman Center, BCC379, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, 92037, California, USA

    Paul Schimmel & Kirk Beebe

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  1. Paul Schimmel
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  2. Kirk Beebe
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Schimmel, P., Beebe, K. Genetic code seizes pyrrolysine. Nature 431, 257–258 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/431257a

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