The involvement of base 1054 in 16S rRNA for UGA stop codon dependent translational termination

The deletion of the highly conserved cytidine nucleotide at position 1054 in E. coli 16S rRNA has been characterized to confer an UGA stop codon specific suppression activity which suggested a functional participation of small subunit rRNA in translational termination. Based on this structure-function correlation we constructed the three point mutations at site 1054, changing the wild-type C residue to an A, G or U base. The mutations were expressed from a complete plasmid encoded rRNA operon (rrnB) using a conditional expression system with the lambda PL-promoter. All three altered 16S rRNA molecules were expressed and incorporated into 70S ribosomal particles. Structural analysis of the protein and 16S rRNA moieties of the mutant ribosomes showed no differences when compared to wild-type particles. The phenotypic analysis revealed that only the 1054G base change led to a significantly reduced generation time of transformed cells, which could be correlated with the inability of the mutant ribosomes to specifically stop at UGA stop codons in vivo. The response towards UAA and UAG termination codons was not altered. Furthermore, in vitro RF-2 termination factor binding experiments indicated that the association behaviour of mutant ribosomes was not changed, enforcing the view that the UGA stop codon suppression is a direct consequence of the rRNA mutation. Taken together, these results argue for a direct participation of that 16S rRNA motif in UGA dependent translational termination and furthermore, suggest that termination factor binding and stop codon recognition are two separate steps of the termination event.