University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2015 Ef-G:trna Dynamics During the Elongation Cycle of Protein Synthesis Rong Shen University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Biochemistry Commons Recommended Citation Shen, Rong, "Ef-G:trna Dynamics During the Elongation Cycle of Protein Synthesis" (2015). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1131. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1131 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1131 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Ef-G:trna Dynamics During the Elongation Cycle of Protein Synthesis Abstract During polypeptide elongation cycle, prokaryotic elongation factor G (EF-G) catalyzes the coupled translocations on the ribosome of mRNA and A- and P-site bound tRNAs. Continued progress has been achieved in understanding this key process, including results of structural, ensemble kinetic and single- molecule studies. However, most of work has been focused on the pre-equilibrium states of this fast process, leaving the real time dynamics, especially how EF-G interacts with the A-site tRNA in the pretranslocation complex, not fully elucidated. In this thesis, the kinetics of EF-G catalyzed translocation is investigated by both ensemble and single molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer studies to further explore the underlying mechanism. In the ensemble work, EF-G mutants were designed and expressed successfully. The labeled EF-G mutants show good translocation activity in two different assays. In the smFRET work, by attachment of a fluorescent probe at position 693 on EF-G permits monitoring of FRET efficiencies to sites in both ribosomal protein L11 and A-site tRNA.