Ribosomal localization of the mRNA in the 30S initiation complex as revealed by UV crosslinking.

Translation initiation complexes consisting of 30S ribosomal subunits, 32P-labelled mRNA (002 mRNA), fMet-tRNA and the three initiation factors were subjected to UV-crosslinking to determine the protein and rRNA neighbors of the bound mRNA by immunochemical methods and by nucleic acid hybridization techniques. The mRNA was found to be crosslinked to a specific region of the 16S rRNA spanning from nucleotide 418 to 615 and to ribosomal proteins S1 and S21 (the main targets), S3, S10, S12 and S14; a low level of crosslinking was also detected with S2, S7, S13, S18 and S19.