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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Probing The Genetic Code With Leucine Trna Variants, Peter Anderson Hall Oct 2022

Probing The Genetic Code With Leucine Trna Variants, Peter Anderson Hall

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Mistranslation is an error in protein synthesis whereby the amino acids specified by the genetic code are misplaced by others in the growing polypeptide chain. The anticodon of tRNALeu can be altered allowing for the misincorporation of leucine at non-leucine codons. Observing the effect of tRNALeu variants on the viability of yeast and mammalian cells will provide information on their ability to cause mistranslation and potential relationship to genetic diseases. To explore this, a random pool of tRNALeu anticodonvariants was expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Furthermore, three mutant tRNALeu already sequenced from humans were expressed in …


Illuminating Transfer Rna Variants As Genetic Modifiers In Models Of Human Disease, Jeremy T. Lant Feb 2022

Illuminating Transfer Rna Variants As Genetic Modifiers In Models Of Human Disease, Jeremy T. Lant

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) physically link the genetic code to an amino acid sequence, by recruiting amino acids to three-nucleotide codons in messenger RNAs. To ensure that the genetic code is translated as intended, tRNAs must be accurately aminoacylated and faithfully recognize codons in the ribosome during protein synthesis. Given the critical function of tRNAs, it has often been assumed that mutations in human tRNA genes would be either lethal to cells or not significantly impair tRNA function. My goal was to rigorously test this assumption in mammalian cell models, prompted by the recent discovery of unprecedented variation in human tRNA …