Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-28-2016
Abstract
Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (AARSs) are a superfamily of enzymes responsible for the faithful translation of the genetic code and have lately become a prominent target for synthetic biologists. Our large-scale analysis of >2500 prokaryotic genomes reveals the complex evolutionary history of these enzymes and their paralogs, in which horizontal gene transfer played an important role. These results show that a widespread belief in the evolutionary stability of this superfamily is misconceived. Although AlaRS, GlyRS, LeuRS, IleRS, ValRS are the most stable members of the family, GluRS, LysRS and CysRS often have paralogs, whereas AsnRS, GlnRS, PylRS and SepRS are often absent from many genomes. In the course of this analysis, highly conserved protein motifs and domains within each of the AARS loci were identified and used to build a web-based computational tool for the genome-wide detection of AARS coding sequences. This is based on hidden Markov models (HMMs) and is available together with a cognate database that may be used for specific analyses. The bioinformatics tools that we have developed may also help to identify new antibiotic agents and targets using these essential enzymes. These tools also may help to identify organisms with alternative pathways that are involved in maintaining the fidelity of the genetic code.
Recommended Citation
Chaliotis, A., Vlastaridis, P., Mossialos, D., lbba, M., Becker, H.D., Stathopoulos, C. and Amoutzias, G. (2017) The complex evolutionary history of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. Nucl. Acids Res. 45, 1059-1068. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkw1182
Copyright
The authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Included in
Amino Acids, Peptides, and Proteins Commons, Biochemistry Commons, Cellular and Molecular Physiology Commons, Molecular Biology Commons, Nucleic Acids, Nucleotides, and Nucleosides Commons, Other Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology Commons
Comments
This article was originally published in Nucleic Acids Research, volume 45, in 2017. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkw1182