Figure 4 - full size

 

Figure 4.
Figure 4 Structure of tRNAtyr compared with that of tRNA^ser. (A) Comparison of the secondary structures of T.thermophilus tRNA^tyr(G A) (left) and tRNA^tyr(GGA) (right), highlighting differences, conserved in other prokaryotic organisms, that determine the orientation of the long variable arm. tRNA^tyr nucleotides with only backbone contacts to TyrRSTT are shown in purple, those with only base contacts are shown in green and those with backbone and base contacts are shown in orange. (B) Comparison of the 3D structures of the base of the long variable arm in T.thermophilus tRNA^tyr and T.thermophilus tRNA^ser (Biou et al., 1994), based on the structural alignment in (C). In tRNA^ser, Gua-20B is unpaired and stacks against the first base pair of the long variable arm, which comprises A45:U48-1 (top). In tRNA^tyr, U48-1 is unpaired and stacks against the first base pair of the long variable arm, which comprises A20B:U48−2 (bottom). (C) View looking down the anticodon stem-loop of the structural alignment of tRNA^tyr (blue) and tRNA^ser (red) based on superposition of 46 phosphates from the acceptor stem, D- and T-loops (r.m.s.d. = 1.16 Å). The tRNA cores have a very similar structure, but the variable arms project at an angle differing by 50°.

The above figure is reprinted from an Open Access publication published by Macmillan Publishers Ltd: EMBO J (2002, 21, 3829-3840) copyright 2002.