Figure 5

Interaction between t-RNA Conformers. There are many different forms (conformers) of t-RNAs in addition to the canonical "cloverleaf" configuration. The hairpin-like structure (a) is suitable for inter-molecular interactions (horizontal lines) in addition to the numerous intra-molecular Watson-Crick complementary contacts (dots). These interactions can lead to dimerization (b-e) of t-RNAs. A parallel alignment of 3 t-RNAs, for example, (b) de-stabilizes the intra-molecular interactions between bases in the middle t-RNA (c) and unfold it (d) or "zip it" into a dimer (e). The secondary structure of the E. coli tRNA Glu was adopted from [39] (Left). The schematic structure and interactions of tRNAs are depicted in the right side of the figure. The anticodons are indicated by the boxes and the amino acid by asterisks. The+ - +signs indicate complementary bases.