Interaction of cinnamyl-tRNAPhe with Escherichia coli elongation factor Tu

The products of nitrous acid mediated-deamination of Phe-tRNAPhe from E. coli were analyzed and their capability to interact with elongation factor Tu from E. coli was investigated. Thin-layer chromatography as well as HPLC analysis revealed the existence of at least two deamination products, 3-phenyl-lactyl-tRNAPhe and cinnamyl-tRNAPhe. It could be shown that the aminoacyl-tRNA analogues were active in the formation of the ternary complex with EF-Tu X GTP, although with a lower efficiency than native Phe-tRNAPhe. For both modified acyl-tRNAs the dissociation constant was determined to be 3 X 10(-5) M.