Unbalanced growth and the production of unique transfer ribonucleic acids in relaxed-control Escherichia coli

The unique leucine-, arginine-, valine-, and phenylalanine-specific transfer ribonucleic acids (tRNA's) produced in relaxed-control (rel-) Escherichia coli during leucine or arginine starvation are chromatographically similar to those produced by chloramphenicol treatment. The major unique rel- leucine-specific and phenylalanine-specific tRNA's are heterogeneous, accumulate with time of starvation, and can account for up to 70% of the respective amino acid acceptor activities. The changes which occur in the isoacceptor profiles for tRNALeu and tRNAPhe as a function of starvation time suggest that the unique species are undermodified precursors to the major isoacceptor species observed in nonstarved cells. Analyses of the isoacceptor patterns of tRNA from cells recovering from starvation suggest that the unique species of tRNALeu and tRNAPhe may not be normally occurring precursors. When leucine-starved cells were incubated in fresh, fully supplemented medium, the major unique tRNALeu and tRNAPhe appeared to be converted to normal species only slowly or not at all. The results are consistent with the view that some of the events in the post-transcriptional modification of tRNA may occur in an ordered sequence. An examination of the subcellular distribution of the unique leucine and phenylalanine tRNA's revealed that these species occur on the ribosome at about the same frequency as the major, normally occurring isoacceptor species. This result provides additional evidence of a precursor-product relationship for the unique and normal tRNA's and further indicates that there is no discrimination against the unique species by the ribosome.