A transfer RNA inosine modification drives genome-wide synonymous recoding across human commensal bacterial families
Christopher D Katanski, Chathuri Pathirage, Jennifer C Chang, Iva Veseli, Tyler J Smith, Marcus Foo, Yuan Wu, Yichen Hou, Hoang Anh V Tran, Dominika Rudzka, Wen Zhang, Mohammad Amin Bayat Tork, Karen Lolans, Amy D Willis, Weixin Tang, A Murat Eren, Michael J Federle, Kristin S Koutmou, Tao Pan, Eric · 2026
Read A transfer RNA inosine modification drives genome-wide synonymous recoding across human commensal bacterial families by Christopher D Katanski, Chathuri Pathirage, Jennifer C Chang, Iva Veseli, Tyler J Smith, Marcus Foo, Yuan Wu, Yichen Hou, Hoang Anh V Tran, Dominika Rudzka, Wen Zhang, Mohammad Amin Bayat Tork, Karen Lolans, Amy D Willis, Weixin Tang, A Murat Eren, Michael J Federle, Kristin S Koutmou, Tao Pan, Eric (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13249217.txt.
Description
Christopher D Katanski and a large team show how one tRNA tweak rewired codon use across gut bacteria in a 2026 study. Transfer RNAs read codons during protein building, and a chemical edit to one letter widens what it can read. The team studied families of bacteria that live in the human gut.
Families carrying the edited leucine tRNA had shifted their leucine codons genome-wide. Proteins in many metabolism paths carried the new codon choices. Bench and growth tests showed the swaps kept translation faithful and aided fitness. The result casts a small RNA edit as an engine of genome evolution in friendly bacteria.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Christopher D Katanski, Chathuri Pathirage, Jennifer C Chang, Iva Veseli, Tyler J Smith, Marcus Foo, Yuan Wu, Yichen Hou, Hoang Anh V Tran, Dominika Rudzka, Wen Zhang, Mohammad Amin Bayat Tork, Karen Lolans, Amy D Willis, Weixin Tang, A Murat Eren, Michael J Federle, Kristin S Koutmou, Tao Pan, Eric |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 48 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |