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Modified Nucleic Acids in Biology and Medicine pp 55–71Cite as

Sulfur Modifications in tRNA: Function and Implications for Human Disease

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Part of the book series: RNA Technologies ((RNATECHN))

Abstract

Transfer RNA is an adaptor molecule that links amino acids to codons on messenger RNA. Functional tRNA molecules are produced by posttranscriptional processing events, such as splicing, end maturation, and chemical modifications of bases and sugars. More than one hundred types of naturally occurring chemical modifications of RNA are currently known. This chapter will summarize the recent advances in our understanding of the sulfur modifications of tRNA and their roles in cellular functions. The biosynthesis of tRNA sulfur modifications involves unique sulfur trafficking systems and modification enzymes that eventually result in the incorporation of a sulfur atom into tRNA. tRNA thionucleosides have been known for some time to be important for accurate and efficient translation, but more recently, these modifications and the codon usage bias of genes have been proposed to control the translation efficiency of specific groups of genes, allowing the organism to adapt to specific environments. Sulfur modifications of tRNA have also far-reaching implications for the molecular pathogenesis of human diseases, and this chapter provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of advances in our knowledge of the mechanisms involved.

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Acknowledgment

I would like to thank all our collaborators, including Drs. Tsutomu Suzuki and Kimitsuna Watanabe (University of Tokyo), and Dr. Shigeyuki Yokoyama (RIKEN), as well as members of their laboratories. I would also like to thank Dr. Kenjyo Miyauchi (University of Tokyo) for comments on the manuscript. This work was supported in part by KAKENHI Grant (24570173) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan and the Takeda Science Foundation.

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  1. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 2-4-7 Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo, 135-0064, Japan

    Naoki Shigi

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Correspondence to Naoki Shigi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Nanobiomedical Center, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland

    Stefan Jurga

  2. Formerly at Institute of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Free University Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Volker A. Erdmann (Deceased)

  3. Institute of the Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań, Poland

    Jan Barciszewski

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Shigi, N. (2016). Sulfur Modifications in tRNA: Function and Implications for Human Disease. In: Jurga, S., Erdmann (Deceased), V., Barciszewski, J. (eds) Modified Nucleic Acids in Biology and Medicine. RNA Technologies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-34175-0_3

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