Disease relevance of pyrrolysine

• PylS-based assays demonstrated that pyrrolysine was biosynthesized in Escherichia coli expressing pylBCD from Methanosarcina acetivorans [1].
• Recognition of pyrrolysine tRNA by the Desulfitobacterium hafniense pyrrolysyl-tRNA synthetase [2].

High impact information on pyrrolysine

• These "recoding" signals are associated with sites of programmed ribosomal frameshifting, hopping, termination codon suppression, and the incorporation of the unusual amino acids selenocysteine and pyrrolysine [3].
• Monomethylamine methyltransferase of the archaeon Methanosarcina barkeri contains a rare amino acid, pyrrolysine, encoded by the termination codon UAG [4].
• The discovery of Sec and Pyl suggested that the genetic code could be further expanded by reprogramming stop codons [5].
• The phenotype of DeltappylT reveals the deficiency in methylamine metabolism expected of a Methanosarcina species unable to decode UAG codons as pyrrolysine, but also that loss of pylT does not compromise growth on other substrates [6].
• Expression of trimethylamine methyltransferase involves contiguous translation of two open reading frames, which is likely to result from incorporation of pyrrolysine at an amber stop codon [7].

Biological context of pyrrolysine

• The activation and aminoacylation properties of D. hafniense PylRS and the nature of the tRNA(Pyl) identity elements were determined by measuring the ability of 24 mutant tRNA(Pyl) species to be aminoacylated with the pyrrolysine analog N-epsilon-cyclopentyloxycarbonyl-l-lysine [2].
• Molecular biology: genetic code seizes pyrrolysine [8].
• The newly discovered tRNA(Pyl) is involved in specific incorporation of pyrrolysine in the active site of methylamine methyltransferases in the archaeon Methanosarcina barkeri [9].

Anatomical context of pyrrolysine

• Evidence for the existence in mRNAs of a hairpin element responsible for ribosome dependent pyrrolysine insertion into proteins [10].

Associations of pyrrolysine with other chemical compounds

• Pyrrolysine is a lysine derivative encoded by the UAG codon in methylamine methyltransferase genes of Methanosarcina barkeri [11].
• The results support an association of LysRS1 with growth on methylamine, but not an essential role for LysRS1/LysRS2 in the genetic encoding of pyrrolysine [12].

Gene context of pyrrolysine

• Atypical archaeal tRNA pyrrolysine transcript behaves towards EF-Tu as a typical elongator tRNA [9].

References