Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases database

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (AARSs) are at the center of the question of the origin of life. They constitute a family of enzymes integrating the two levels of cellular organization: nucleic acids and proteins. AARSs arose early in evolution and are believed to be a group of ancient proteins. They are...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nucleic acids research 2001-01, Vol.29 (1), p.288-290
Main Authors: Szymanski, M, Deniziak, M A, Barciszewski, J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amino Acid Sequence
Amino Acyl-tRNA Synthetases - genetics
Databases, Factual
Information Services
Internet
Molecular Sequence Data
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (AARSs) are at the center of the question of the origin of life. They constitute a family of enzymes integrating the two levels of cellular organization: nucleic acids and proteins. AARSs arose early in evolution and are believed to be a group of ancient proteins. They are responsible for attaching amino acid residues to their cognate tRNA molecules, which is the first step in the protein synthesis. The role they play in a living cell is essential for the precise deciphering of the genetic code. The analysis of AARSs evolutionary history was not possible for a long time due to a lack of a sufficiently large number of their amino acid sequences. The emerging picture of synthetases' evolution is a result of recent achievements in genomics [Woese,C., Olsen,G.J., Ibba,M. and Söll,D. (2000) Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev., 64, 202-236]. In this paper we present a short introduction to the AARSs database. The updated database contains 1047 AARS primary structures from archaebacteria, eubacteria, mitochondria, chloroplasts and eukaryotic cells. It is the compilation of amino acid sequences of all AARSs known to date, which are available as separate entries via the WWW at http://biobases.ibch.poznan.pl/aars/.
ISSN:1362-4962
0305-1048
1362-4962
DOI:10.1093/nar/29.1.288