Title
Relaxed tRNA Specificity of the Staphylococcus Aureus Aspartyl-tRNA Synthetase Enables RNA-dependent Asparagine Biosynthesis
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2014
Published In
FEBS Letters
Volume
588
Issue
9
Pages
1808-1812
DOI
10.1016/j.febslet.2014.03.042
Recommended Citation
Mladenova, S. R.; Stein, K. R.; Bartlett, L.; Sheppard, K., Relaxed tRNA specificity of the Staphylococcus aureus aspartyl-tRNA synthetase enables RNA-dependent asparagine biosynthesis. FEBS Lett. 2014, 588 (9), 1808-1812.
Abstract
The human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus is an asparagine prototroph despite its genome not encoding an asparagine synthetase. S. aureus does use an asparaginyl-tRNA synthetase (AsnRS) to directly ligate asparagine to tRNAAsn. The S. aureusgenome also codes for one aspartyl-tRNA synthetase (AspRS). Here we demonstrate the lone S. aureus aspartyl-tRNA synthetase has relaxed tRNA specificity and can be used with the amidotransferase GatCAB to synthesize asparagine on tRNAAsn. S. aureus thus encodes both the direct and indirect routes for Asn-tRNAAsn formation while encoding only one aspartyl-tRNA synthetase. The presence of the indirect pathway explains how S. aureus synthesizes asparagine without either asparagine synthetase.
Keywords
tRNA, RNA-dependent, asparagine biosynthesis, aspartyl-tRNA synthetase, staphylococcus aureus
