Abstract
“Biomimetic Aminoacylation”
Svetlana K. Tzvetkova
Doctor of Philosophy, 2008
Graduate Department of Chemistry
University of Toronto
The accuracy of ribosomal protein synthesis depends on the fidelity of highly specific enzymes, aminoacyl tRNA synthetases, towards amino acid – tRNA pairs. These biological catalysts are responsible for activating the amino acids as aminoacyl adenylates and for their subsequent attachment to the 2’- or 3’-OH at the 3’-terminal of the correct tRNA to give aminoacyl-tRNA.
Extended diversity in protein structure and function could be achieved if non-natural side chains can be introduced in protein synthesis. This requires that the acceptor stem of a tRNA molecule be synthetically aminoacylated. The most widely used methods for charging tRNA with non-natural amino acids involve multi-step synthesis of an aminoacyl-pCpA and its consequent enzymatic ligation to truncated tRNA. No direct route to these species has been reported.
We have developed a method for direct biomimetic aminoacylation of the 3’-terminal hydroxyls of tRNA. Our approach shows to be promising in reactions leading to direct 2’- or 3’-O-aminoacylation of not only nucleosides and nucleotides but also RNA in general and tRNA in particular.
The system we have developed provides: 1) efficient activation of the amino acids as aminoacyl phosphates, analogues of the enzymatic intermediates, and 2) specific recognition of the 3’-terminal of tRNA by lanthanide ions present in the reaction. The aminoacylating reagents used in our studies were carefully selected to provide handles to follow the reaction: UV absorbance, fluorescence spectroscopy and 19F NMR. Lanthanide (III) ions can play a role similar to a key part of the aminoacyl tRNA synthetases – they bring the aminoacyl close to the 3’-terminal of tRNA, in this case by forming a bis-bidentate complex with the aminoacyl phosphate and the 2’,3’-diol functionality of the 3’-terminal adenosine. This process relies on the specificity towards the unique 3’-terminal diol on tRNA, provided by the metal ion and the simultaneous complexation of the aminoacyl phosphate.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/11270 |
| Date | 01 August 2008 |
| Creators | Tzvetkova, Svetlana |
| Contributors | Kluger, Ronald |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 2827719 bytes, application/pdf |
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