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Published on: December 20, 2010
Cys-tRNACys formation and cysteine biosynthesis in methanogenic archaea: two faces of the same problem?
A Ambrogelly1, S Kamtekar, A Sauerwald
1Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, 266 Whitney Avenue, P.O. Box 208114, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8114, USA.
Abstract:
Aminoacyl-tRNA (transfer RNA) synthetases are essential components of the cellular translation machinery as they provide the ribosome with aminoacyl-tRNAs. Aminoacyl-tRNA synthesis is generally well understood. However, the mechanism of Cys-tRNACys formation in three methanogenic archaea ( Methanocaldococcus jannaschii, Methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus and Methanopyrus kandleri) is still unknown, since no recognizable gene for a canonical cysteinyl-tRNA synthetase could be identified in the genome sequences of these organisms. Here we review the different routes recently proposed for Cys-tRNACys formation and discuss its possible link with cysteine biosynthesis in these methanogenic archaea.
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