EDITING DOES NOT EXIST FOR MAMMALIAN SELENOCYSTEINE TRANSFER-RNAS

It has been reported that selenocysteine tRNA from bovine liver is completely edited to two isoacceptor species, called tRNA[Ser]Sec(NCA) and tRNA[Ser]Sec(CmCA), which differ from the gene sequence. We used direct tRNA sequencing, mobility shift analyses, primer extension, restriction enzyme digestion and single strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP) analyses of products from reverse transcription coupled with polymerase chain reaction (RT/PCR), sequencing of RT/PCR products and HPLC-coupled mass spectrometry to reproduce this result and show here that editing of these tRNAs does not occur.