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Two isogenic derivatives of Escherichia coli K12: strains EA 1 (Met-, Biot-, RCstr and EA 2 (Mei-, Biot-, RCrel) when grown in the presence of ethionine in place of methionine, synthesize ribosomes whose RNA is submethylated and whose proteins contain ethionine. Net ribosome synthesis in the presence of ethionine is greater in the RCrel strain than in the RCstr strain. The precedinig paper describes results obtained with the latter strain. Here we present further studies carried out with the isogenic RCrel strain EA 2 As in the case of the RCstr strain (previous paper) ribosomes synthesized by the RCrel strain grown in the presence of ethionine display defective association properties. A large fraction of these "ethionine" ribosomes is found as free subunits in crude extracts containing 10 mM Mg+ prepared from strain EA 2 grown in an ethionine-containing medium. These free "ethionine" subunits have sedimentation coefficients of 28 S and 45 S approximately while the "ethionine" subunits found associated as 70 S particles in crude bacterial extracts sediment at 30 S and 50 S respectively. Both classes of "ethionine" subunits (free, and associated) can be methylated in vitro in the presence of S-adenosyl methionine with or without the addition of an external source of methylases (100000 x g supernatant of a homologous crude bacterial extract) The latter observation shows that the "ethionine" subunits contain bound methylases. These enzymes do not seem to be normal ribosomal proteins nor to be bound specifically to "ethionine" ribosomes since (a) they are removed by washing the "ethionine" ribosomes with 1 M NH4Cl, and (b) they are found bound to normal methionine ribosomes from which they are also removed by washing with 1 M NH4Cl. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The binding of purified Gly3-Phe-tRNA to Escherichia coli ribosomes was compared to that of crude Gly3-Phe-tRNA (containing bulk tRNA). Gly3-phe-tRNA from the purified preparation binds preferentially to the P site (peptidyl site) at both a high (30 mM) and a low (10 mM) magnesium acetate concentration, while peptidyl-tRNA from the crude preparation bound more to A site (aminoacyl site) than to the P site at 30 mM magnesium acetate under the same experimental conditions. The addition of tRNAPhe to the purified Gly3-Phe-tRNA preparation strongly inhibited the binding at 10 mM. At 30 mM Mg2+ the addition of the same amount of tRNAPhe caused the Gly3-Phe-tRNA to bind partially to the A site, but did not inhibit the total amount of Gly3-Phe-tRNA which binds to the ribosomes. The binding of purified Phe-tRNA in the presence of T factor and GTP is not inhibited by tetracycline. However, tetracycline strongly inhibited the enzymatic binding of Phe-tRNA when tRNAPhe was added. From the results presented in this paper it is proposed that in the presence of poly(U), Phe-tRNA or peptidyl-tRNAPhe can bind to A sites only of those ribosomes which have their P site occupied by tRNA or one of its derivatives (aminoacyl-tRNA or peptidyl-tRNA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]