Reinitiation of a lac repressor fragment at a codon other than AUG.

52 Spontaneous nonsense mutants in the lac i gene of Escherichia coli were isolated and characterized. All mutants located early in the gene show negative complementation in vivo with a wild-type i gene in a recA diploid strain. In vitro studies show that those mutants that display negative complementing activity in vivo also make lac repressor fragments retaining inducer binding and immunological crossreactivity with wild-type repressor. Amino-acid sequence analysis of these fragments shows that they arise by reinitiation at internal sities of the i message after chain termination at a prior amber or ochre codon. There are at least two different internal reinitiation sites in the first 200 nucleotides of the translated part of the i message. The first site corresponds to the first internal in phase AUG codon, which specifies the methionine residue at position 42 of the repressor protein. This site can be activated by an amber codon, 45 nucleotides before the AUG codon. The second site is only 60 nucleotides past the first site and can be activated by an amber mutation derived from residue 60 of the protein. The second initiation codon specifies the amino-acid leucine in the wild-type repressor, but the reinitiated fragment shows an amino-terminal methionine residue at this position. Therefore, the second initiation site seems to involve an in vivo ambiguity of the genetic code in that the same codon can be translated into two different amino acids depending on the recognition of this codon during initiation (when methionine is inserted) or elongation of protein synthesis (when leucine is inserted). The possibility that a codon other than AUG can act as an initiation codon in vivo is discussed.