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Rates of growth, ribosome synthesis and elongation factor synthesis in a tufA defective strain of E. coli

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Summary

A tufA defective strain of E. coli was isolated which by a single deletion event acquired a tufA-lacZ fusion gene and lost the normal functional tufA gene (see accompanying paper). A correlation between the growth rate and the rate of ribosome synthesis showed that the average rate of protein synthesis was decreased to about 50% in the tufA defective strain whereas the number of EF-Tu molecules per ribosome was about 80% compared to a normal strain. The results indicate that tufB gene expression was preferentially stimulated in the tufA defective strain but the increased EF-TuB synthesis was not sufficient to make up for the loss of normal EF-TuA synthesis. Introduction of a plasmid that carries a complete tufA gene and the preceeding fusA gene but not the str-promotor into the tufA defective strain did not alleviate the slow growth or low rate of EF-Tu synthesis showing that the high rate of EF-TuA synthesis compared to the other proteins in the str operon is not augmented by a strong second promotor for the tufA gene. The tufA-lacZ fusion which takes the place of the normal tufA gene was expressed at a high rate and the β-galactosidase activity increased with the growth rate as expected.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Biology and Plant Physiology, University of Aarhus, DK-8000, Aarhus C, Denmark

    Kirsten Gausing

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  1. Kirsten Gausing
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Communicated by W. Arber

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Gausing, K. Rates of growth, ribosome synthesis and elongation factor synthesis in a tufA defective strain of E. coli . Molec. Gen. Genet. 184, 272–277 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00272916

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00272916

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