The t6A modification acts as a positive determinant for the anticodon nuclease PrrC, and is distinctively nonessential in Streptococcus mutans.

Endoribonuclease toxins (ribotoxins) are produced by bacteria and fungi to respond to stress, eliminate non-self competitor species, or interdict virus infection. PrrC is a bacterial ribotoxin that targets and cleaves tRNALysUUU in the anticodon loop. In vitro studies suggested that the post-transcriptional modification threonylcarbamoyl adenosine (t6A) is required for PrrC activity but this prediction had never been validated in vivo. Here, by using t6A-deficient yeast derivatives, it is shown that t6A is a positive determinant for PrrC proteins from various bacterial species. Streptococcus mutans is one of the few bacteria where the t6A synthesis gene tsaE (brpB) is dispensable and its genome encodes a PrrC toxin. We had previously shown using an HPLC-based assay that the S. mutans tsaE mutant was devoid of t6A. However, we describe here a novel and a more sensitive hybridization-based t6A detection method (compared to HPLC) that showed t6A was still present in the S. mutans ΔtsaE, albeit at greatly reduced levels (93% reduced compared with WT). Moreover, mutants in 2 other S. mutans t6A synthesis genes (tsaB and tsaC) were shown to be totally devoid of the modification thus confirming its dispensability in this organism. Furthermore, analysis of t6A modification ratios and of t6A synthesis genes mRNA levels in S. mutans suggest they may be regulated by growth phase.

A text message intervention for alcohol risk reduction among community college students: TMAP.

BACKGROUND: Students at community colleges comprise nearly half of all U.S. college students and show higher risk of heavy drinking and related consequences compared to students at 4-year colleges, but no alcohol safety programs currently target this population. OBJECTIVE: To examine the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of an alcohol risk-reduction program delivered through text messaging designed for community college (CC) students. METHODS: Heavy drinking adult CC students (N=60) were enrolled and randomly assigned to the six-week active intervention (Text Message Alcohol Program: TMAP) or a control condition of general motivational (not alcohol related) text messages. TMAP text messages consisted of alcohol facts, strategies to limit alcohol use and related risks, and motivational messages. Assessments were conducted at baseline, week 6 (end of treatment) and week 12 (follow up). RESULTS: Most participants (87%) completed all follow up assessments. Intervention messages received an average rating of 6.8 (SD=1.5) on a 10-point scale. At week six, TMAP participants were less likely than controls to report heavy drinking and negative alcohol consequences. The TMAP group also showed significant increases in self-efficacy to resist drinking in high risk situations between baseline and week six, with no such increase among controls. Results were maintained through the week 12 follow up. CONCLUSIONS: The TMAP alcohol risk reduction program was feasible and highly acceptable indicated by high retention rates through the final follow up assessment and good ratings for the text message content. Reductions in multiple outcomes provide positive indications of intervention efficacy.

Essentiality of threonylcarbamoyladenosine (t(6)A), a universal tRNA modification, in bacteria.

Threonylcarbamoyladenosine (t(6)A) is a modified nucleoside universally conserved in tRNAs in all three kingdoms of life. The recently discovered genes for t(6)A synthesis, including tsaC and tsaD, are essential in model prokaryotes but not essential in yeast. These genes had been identified as antibacterial targets even before their functions were known. However, the molecular basis for this prokaryotic-specific essentiality has remained a mystery. Here, we show that t(6)A is a strong positive determinant for aminoacylation of tRNA by bacterial-type but not by eukaryotic-type isoleucyl-tRNA synthetases and might also be a determinant for the essential enzyme tRNA(Ile)-lysidine synthetase. We confirm that t(6)A is essential in Escherichia coli and a survey of genome-wide essentiality studies shows that genes for t(6)A synthesis are essential in most prokaryotes. This essentiality phenotype is not universal in Bacteria as t(6)A is dispensable in Deinococcus radiodurans, Thermus thermophilus, Synechocystis PCC6803 and Streptococcus mutans. Proteomic analysis of t(6)A(-) D. radiodurans strains revealed an induction of the proteotoxic stress response and identified genes whose translation is most affected by the absence of t(6)A in tRNAs. Thus, although t(6)A is universally conserved in tRNAs, its role in translation might vary greatly between organisms.

Four-body scoring function for mutagenesis.

MOTIVATION: There is a need for an efficient and accurate computational method to identify the effects of single- and multiple-residue mutations on the stability and reactivity of proteins. Such a method should ideally be consistent and yet applicable in a widespread manner, i.e. it should be applied to various proteins under the same parameter settings, and have good predictive power for all of them. RESULTS: We develop a Delaunay tessellation-based four-body scoring function to predict the effects of single- and multiple-residue mutations on the stability and reactivity of proteins. We test our scoring function on sets of single-point mutations used by several previous studies. We also assemble a new, diverse set of 237 single- and multiple-residue mutations, from over 24 different publications. The four-body scoring function correctly predicted the changes to the stability of 169 out of 210 mutants (80.5%), and the changes to the reactivity of 17 out of 27 mutants (63%). For the mutants that had the changes in stability/reactivity quantified (using reaction rates, temperatures, etc.), an average Spearman rank correlation coefficient of 0.67 was achieved with the four-body scores. We also develop an efficient method for screening huge numbers of mutants of a protein, called combinatorial mutagenesis. In one study, 64 million mutants of a cold-shock nucleus binding domain protein 1CSQ, with six of its residues being changed to all possible (20) amino acids, were screened within a few hours on a PC, and all five stabilizing mutants reported were correctly identified as stabilizing by combinatorial mutagenesis.