Structure of the amino-terminal end of mammalian elongation factor Tu

Mixed sequence oligonucleotide probes complementary for peptides Thr-Ile-Glu-Lys-Phe-Glu and Asp-Tyr-Val-Lys-Asn-Met-Ile which are located in the amino-terminal region of eEF-Tu were used to obtain reverse transcripts from murine and human poly(A) super(+) mRNA. Reverse transcription products were separated on polyacrylamide gels and sequenced. Both sequences contain an open reading frame of 282 nucleotides which code for the same sequence of ninety-four amino acids including the start methionine (ATG) codon. A comparison of this amino acid sequence with those reported for yeast and Artemia) eEF-Tu indicated only three differences between the brine shrimp and mammals only seven between yeast and mammals (see Fig. 1).