Ribosomal assembly influenced by growth in the presence of streptomycin

Translational leakiness (i.e., nonspecific suppression) of nonsense mutants of bacteriophage T4 is increased in cells of certain streptomycin-resistant strains previously grown in the presence of streptomycin. Concomitantly, ribosomes extracted from these streptomycin-grown cells possess a high level of misreading. Increased suppression ability as well as ribosomes that highly misread accumulate with kinetics expected for a constant differential rate of synthesis of a new product induced by drug action. The misreading ribosomes do not contain appreciable amounts of streptomycin and the misreading property is lost by exposure to high salt concentrations. It is suggested that streptomycin (or dihydrostreptomycin, or paromomycin) induces a reversible modification in 30S subunit assembly without physically participating in the modified structure. The extent of this modification appears dependent upon the strA allele.