tRNA processing, modification, and subcellular dynamics: past, present, and future
- 1Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Center for RNA Biology, University of Rochester School of Medicine, Rochester, New York 14642, USA
- 2Department of Molecular Genetics, Center for RNA Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
- Corresponding author: eric_phizicky{at}urmc.rochester.edu
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
tRNA research was such a small field in 1995 that we used to quip that we could have a meeting of the entire American community interested in tRNA processing and modification in one of our living rooms. Research since the 1960's had yielded the crucial role of tRNAs in translation, and contributed heavily to our understanding of RNA structure and chemistry. We knew the structure of three tRNA species, for many years the only structures of functional RNAs, and we knew the identity, position, and physical properties of many of the myriad of tRNA modifications in several experimental organisms. Moreover, tRNA research from the late 1970's and early 1980's had ushered in the era of RNA splicing and RNA catalysis, had unraveled large parts of the puzzle of the second genetic code controlling how tRNAs are specifically charged by their cognate synthetases, and had uncovered some of the important mechanisms …
