The asparaginyl-tRNA synthetase gene encodes one of the complementing factors for thermosensitive translation in the Escherichia coli mutant strain, N4316.

Escherichia coli strain N4316 is a mutant that exhibits temperature-sensitive growth at 43 degrees C and temperature-sensitive translation in vivo and in vitro. Extracts of the mutant produce an aberrant pattern of translation products of MS2 bacteriophage RNA. Previous work has shown that a protein, called 'rescue', isolated from the parental strain partly corrects the defective translation in vitro. Here we report the purification to homogeneity of a second factor from ribosomal eluates of the wild-type parental strain; the purified protein is a homodimer of 54 kDa. The partial sequence of the second protein was determined, and a recombinant plasmid was isolated based on its ability to complement the temperature-sensitive growth phenotype of the mutant at the non-permissive temperatures. The cloned gene was sequenced, mapped to the 20.9-min region of the E. coli chromosome and shown to code for a 466-amino-acid protein with a molecular mass of 52 kDa. Analysis of the DNA sequence and the correspondence to that of the partial protein sequence has identified the complementing factor as asparaginyl-tRNA synthetase. Marker rescue experiments indicate that the asnS mutation in N4316 resides within the motif 2 domain of the synthetase. A potential role of this synthetase in restoring normal protein synthesis with respect to ribosomal frameshifting, read-through of nonsense codons and protein copy number is discussed.

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