Recoding: Expansion of Decoding Rules Enriches Gene Expression
The dynamic nature of decoding the information in messenger RNA was unanticipated at the time the genetic code was first deciphered. We now know that both the meaning of individual codons and the framing of the readout process can be modified
- PDF / 10,283,634 Bytes
- 473 Pages / 482.632 x 749.866 pts Page_size
- 70 Downloads / 136 Views
John F. Atkins Raymond F. Gesteland Editors
Recoding Expansion of Decoding Rules Enriches Gene Expression
Nucleic Acids and Molecular Biology
For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/881
John F. Atkins · Raymond F. Gesteland Editors
Recoding: Expansion of Decoding Rules Enriches Gene Expression
123
Editors John F. Atkins BioSciences Institute University College Cork Ireland and Department of Human Genetics University of Utah and Genetics Department Trinity College Dublin, Ireland [email protected]
Raymond F. Gesteland Department of Human Genetics University of Utah 15N. 2030E. Salt Late City UT 84112-5330 USA [email protected]
ISBN 978-0-387-89381-5 e-ISBN 978-0-387-89382-2 DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-89382-2 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2009938958 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Foreword
The literature on recoding is scattered, so this superb book fills a need by providing up-to-date, comprehensive, authoritative reviews of the many kinds of recoding phenomena. Between 1961 and 1966 my colleagues and I deciphered the genetic code in Escherichia coli and showed that the genetic code is the same in E. coli, Xenopus laevis, and guinea pig tissues. These results showed that the code has been conserved during evolution and strongly suggested that the code appeared very early during biological evolution, that all forms of life on earth descended from a common ancestor, and thus that all forms of life on this planet are related to one another. The problem of biological time was solved by encoding information in DNA and retrieving the information for each new generation, for it is easier to make a new organism than it is to repair an aging, malfunctioning one. Subsequently, small modifications of the standard genetic code were found in certain organisms and in mitochondria. Mitochondrial DNA only encodes about 10–13 proteins, so some modifications of the genetic code are tolerated that probably would be lethal if applied to the thousands of kinds of proteins encoded by genomic DNA. In 1986 the 21st amino acid, selenocysteine, which responds to the terminator codon, UGA, when a stem-loop structure in mRNA is dow
Data Loading...
