The importance of individual nucleotides for the structure and function of rRNA molecules in E. coli. A mutagenesis study.

Methods of in vitro mutagenesis were employed to determine the importance of individual nucleotides within the ribosomal RNAs for the structure and function of E. coli ribosomes. A series of defined nucleotides in the genes for the 5 S and 16 S RNA were altered by transition and transversion mutations using either oligonucleotide-directed or bisulfite-catalyzed mutation procedures. Plasmids harbouring the mutated rRNA genes were expressed and the ribosomes containing such altered RNAs were investigated for impairments in RNA-protein interaction assembly and mRNA-coded tRNA binding.