Interactions of release factor RF3 with the translation machinery

The bacterial release factor RF3 is a GTPase that has been implicated in multiple, incompletely understood steps of protein synthesis. This study explores the genetic interaction of RF3 with other components of the translation machinery. RF3 contributes to translation termination by recycling the class I release factors RF1 and RF2 off post-termination ribosomes. RF3 has also been implicated in dissociation of peptidyl-tRNAs from elongating ribosomes and in a post-peptidyltransferase quality control (post-PT QC) mechanism that selectively terminates ribosomes carrying erroneous peptides. A majority of the in vivo studies on RF3 have been carried out in K-12 strains of Escherichia coli which carry a partially defective RF2 protein with an Ala to Thr substitution at position 246. Here, the contribution of the K-12 specific RF2 variant to RF3 activities has been investigated. Strain reconstruction experiments in both E. coli and Salmonella enterica demonstrate that defects in termination and post-PT QC that are associated with RF3 loss, as well as phenotypes uncovered by phenotypic profiling, are all substantially ameliorated when the incompletely active K-12-specific RF2 protein is replaced by a fully active Ala246 RF2. These results indicate that RF3 loss is well tolerated in bacteria with fully active class I release factors, but that many of the previously reported phenotypes for RF3 deletion strains have been compromised by the presence of a partially defective RF2.