Genetically Altered tRNAGly Subspecies in E. coli

A thorough understanding of the details of transfer RNA (tRNA) structure-function relation-ships is essential in studies on the mechanism of protein biosynthesis. An important approach to the study of tRNA aetion is through the use of mutant bacterial strains containing tRNA molecules with altered structure, and, as a result, altered function. In contrast to chemical alterations of tRNA structure, which may lead to random multiple changes in the polynucleotide, mutational changes in tRNA can be expected to be quite specific at single sites in the molecule. Thus it is anticipated that changes in tRNA function could be corre-lated with single-base substitutions in the poly-nucleotide chain. Mutational changes in tRNA leading to altera-tion of codeword recognition are now well known. This type of change is involved in mutations lead-ing to the suppression of nonsense or termination